An unprecedented new court ruling has been made by Copenhagen City Court in relation to a Romanian migrant. The court sentenced the 40-year-old father of five to 14 days in prison for begging on a pedestrian street in Copenhagen. The 4 DKK he had been able to collect in this time (the equivalent of € 0.50) were confiscated, and he is now required to pay the expenses of the court case. Such expenses usually amount to several thousand euros.

The judgement is considered controversial in light of the fact that Switzerland lost a similar case - Lacatus vs Switzerland - in January 2021 at the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg. In this instance the court found that Switzerland had violated articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights by sentencing a Romanian woman to five days in prison for begging, as she was unable to pay the country's € 500 begging fine.

In reaction to the Strasbourg judgment, the Danish Institute for Human Rights said that the Danish law on begging had to be revised. The Danish Ministry of Justice then released a legal note in May 2021 claiming that the Danish law was not in breach of human rights, as it was not identical to the Swiss law. However, the ministry did acknowledge the risk that Denmark might in the future lose a case similar to the Strasbourg case.

Copenhagen City Court made the new ruling on 12 August upon consultation with legal experts from the Danish government, thereby disagreeing with both the human rights court and the Danish Institute for Human Rights. The lawyer of the Romanian man has appealed the case for his client and plans to 'take it all the way to Strasbourg' if needed.

The judge at Copenhagen City Court argued that the Romanian man had been 'more confronting and aggressive' in his begging than the Romanian woman in Switzerland. He supported this claim by saying that the man had been sitting on the sidewalk with a bag full of empty bottles, making it difficult for passers-by to ignore his request for money, and had reached out his hand to and directly addressed them.

The Danish law against begging was introduced in 2017, and made permanent in June 2020. From the first time a person is caught begging in a pedestrian street, at a train station, in a train or outside a supermarket, they can be sentenced to 14 days in prison. The law does not specifically mention foreigners or migrants, but was hastily passed after Romania was admitted into EU and small groups of Romanians started camping in parks and green areas in Copenhagen. They were making more money in Denmark from collecting bottles for recycling or begging than they would have been making from a job in their home country. Although no incidents of violence were reported, some politicians said that their presence was creating 'a sense of insecurity' and ordered the police to clear the camps. 

Europe has seen a tendency to criminalise poverty and homelessness lately, rather than supporting and helping less fortunate citizens. This is affecting migrants and foreigners more often than nationals. A further example of this in Denmark is the public shelters for the homeless, wherein only Danish citizens are accepted.