ALAM v. DENMARK
Inadmissible
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro;Ledi Bianku;Nebojša Vučinić;Paul Lemmens;Robert Spano;Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström
1. The applicant, Ms Faruk Rooma Alam, is a Pakistani national who was born in 1982 and lives in Denmark. She was represented before the Court by Ms Karoline Normann, a lawyer practising in Copenhagen. summarised as follows. 3. The applicant stated that she entered Denmark in 1984, when she was approximately 2 years old, to join her father, who already lived there. It is not known when her mother and siblings arrived. 4. The applicant was registered with the Danish National Register (folkeregisteret) as from 18 January 1986. On 2 February 2001 she was granted a permanent residence permit. 5. The applicant went to school and studied to be a datamathematician. 6. In 1999, when the applicant was 16 years old, her parents arranged her marriage to F, a Pakistani national, in Pakistan. 7. In May 1999, F entered Denmark on a tourist visa. After 3 months, he returned to Pakistan. During the subsequent years they visited each other in Denmark and Pakistan. 8. On 27 November 2000, the applicant gave birth in Denmark to their son, M, a Pakistani national. 9. On 1 March 2004, the applicant gave birth in Denmark to their daughter, I, a Pakistani national. 10. The applicant maintained that F was violent and that in 2006, when she had been in Pakistan to attend her brother’s wedding, she and the children had been locked up for days by F and his family, in order to keep her in Pakistan. She had managed to escape, but F had found them and kidnapped M. With assistance from the Danish Embassy, the applicant and I had returned to Denmark. After some time, F had agreed that M be returned to the applicant in Denmark. Thereafter the applicant did not return to Pakistan and the spouses had no contact. They divorced in 2006 or 2007. In 2008 the applicant was granted sole custody of M and I. 11. In Denmark the applicant lived with her children, her mother and a brother. 12. On 31 August 2011 she was convicted of social security fraud and given a six-month suspended sentence. 13. On 14 September 2012 the applicant was detained and charged with, inter alia, murder. 14. On 17 December 2013, she was convicted by a City Court (retten i Roskilde) of murder, attempted aggravated robbery and arson under Articles 237, 288 in conjunction with 21, and 180 of the Penal Code. She was sentenced to life imprisonment. 15. The City Court found it established, among other things, that the applicant had had a relationship with a Pakistani man who later married N, for which reason the applicant, who was 30 years old at the time, planned to murder N. With the help of her 19-year-old nephew and his 17-year-old friend, they watched the spouses’ apartment and, when they were certain that N was alone, they entered, masked, armed with a meat tenderiser and carrying petrol. Then they searched in vain for valuables, poured petrol over N and set her alight. She burned to death, and the apartment burned out, thereby also endangering the lives of the other inhabitants of the residential building. 16. By the same judgment, the applicant was expelled from Denmark with a life-long ban on returning. Before the City Court, the Aliens Board (Udlændingestyrelsen) gave a statement about the applicant’s situation, including, inter alia, that she had stayed legally in Denmark for approximately 27 years, that she spoke Danish, English, German, Pashto, Urdu and Punjabi, and that her mother and five siblings lived in Denmark. Moreover, since the children’s residence permits were dependent on the applicant living in Denmark, expulsion might have consequences for them. 17. Before the City Court, the applicant stated that most of her family in Denmark had obtained Danish nationality. Her father, who had died in 2003, had been married before, and she had half-siblings in Pakistan from that marriage. Her mother went often to Pakistan and owned a house there. Her children, at that time aged 9 and 13, had been placed with her sister and her husband since the applicant’s arrest. She was afraid that their father, F, would kidnap them and take them to Pakistan. He had obtained a Spanish passport. The children spoke Danish, and M also spoke a little Pashto in order to be able to talk to his maternal grandmother. 18. In respect of the expulsion order the City Court stated: “[The applicant] who is 30 years old, entered Denmark ... when she was one and a half years old. She has had all her upbringing, schooling and education in this country. Her mother and most of her siblings live in Denmark and are Danish citizens. Moreover, her children, who are 9 and 13 years old, live in Denmark. However, [the applicant] has maintained what must be considered a real attachment to Pakistan and Pakistani culture. With her mother she speaks only Pashto, and her family is integrated as a central part of her network. She has previously been to Pakistan, where she has two half-sisters, and her mother often goes to Pakistan, where she owns a house. Against this background, and having regard to the fact that [the applicant] is punished with life imprisonment for attempted aggravated robbery, murder and arson, and since the above-stated about the risk of double punishment and persecution and considerations for the applicant’s children cannot lead to another decision, expulsion will not breach Article 8 of the Convention or Denmark’s international obligations otherwise, see section 26, subsection 2, of the Aliens Act. Against this background there are 12 votes in favour of granting the expulsion request with a lifelong ban on returning by virtue of section 49, subsection 1, in conjunction with section 22, no. 6 and section 32, subsection 2, no. 5.” 19. The applicant appealed against the judgment to the High Court of Eastern Denmark (Østre Landsret) before which she explained, among other things, that her children had visited her in prison once or twice a week. F had requested custody of the children and that case was pending before the City Court. He had attempted, in vain, to obtain a residence permit in Denmark. 20. By judgment of 4 September 2014, the High Court confirmed the conviction but reduced the sentence to 16 years’ imprisonment. Adhering to the reasons set out by the City Court, it upheld the expulsion order. 21. Leave to appeal to the Supreme Court (Højesteret) was refused on 13 January 2015. 22. On 6 March 2015, the applicant married a Danish citizen. 23. By judgment of 29 June 2015, F’s request for custody of M and I was refused. From that judgment it appeared that the applicant had consented to her children being officially placed with her sister and her husband. The children were well-adjusted. They had not seen F for seven years. In the period from 2007 to 2012 he had not contacted them at all. They wanted to live with their mother, together with their aunt and uncle (with whom they lived). They did not want to live with their father in Pakistan. Even if the father had the possibility to move to Denmark, they did not want to live with him. They did not want contact with him. 24. The relevant provisions of the Aliens Act (udlændingeloven) relating to expulsion were recently set out in detail in Salem v. Denmark, no. 77036/11, §§ 49-52, 1 December 2016. 25. Article 38 of the Penal Code sets out that release on parole may take place at the expiry of two-third of the term of imprisonment, or in special circumstances, take place earlier, provided that the prisoner has served at least half of the sentence, and this constitutes a period of at least two months. If a sentence of life imprisonment has been imposed, leave on parole can only take place after the prisoner has served at least twelve years (Article 41).