Denmark: Government to investigate intelligence service
01 January 1999
The Danish Minister of Justice, Mr. Frank Jensen, presented a new law to parliament on 27 October 1998 stipulating the guidelines under which an investigation into the police intelligence service, Politiets Efterretningstjeneste (PET) should take place. The investigation will cover the period from 1968 until present (see Statewatch Vol. 8, no. 5).
The law was introduced after documents were found in PET archives showing that even though the Prime Minister in 1968, Mr. Hilmar Baunsgaard, promised that nobody would be registered in PET files on the basis of their political views alone, the PET chief, Mr. Arne Nielsen, ordered his employees to continue to register them anyway. This practice continued until 1974 and perhaps even longer. Later it was revealed that the PET chief had the files microfilmed and secretly without informing the minister sent the films to the Danish embassy in Washington where they were hidden. It was claimed that by so doing the records would be secure in the event of a Sovietbloc occupation of Denmark.
Under the proposed law the investigation would be conducted by a commission consisting of a judge, a lawyer and a university academic. Both right and left parties in parliament criticised the new law. The right did not want any investigation at all but, in case it came anyway, they argued that it should include an investigation of the left's political activities. The left criticised the law for limiting the scope of the investigation and for granting too many protection provisions to civil servants that had been and/or still are in critical positions in relation to the intelligence services during the period investigated. The results would be very limited and any conclusions useless, they argued.
Since October debate has been raging. The Lawyers' Council was reluctant to appoint one of its members as was the case with the universities. Both believed that by appointing from among their own members/staff they, as organisations/institutions, would be too closely tied to the final report's findings. Instead, parliament should take responsibility to appoint the members of the commission. This would create a better start for an independent investigation. In light of this argument Jensen has signalled that he is open to review the arrangements along the lines inspired by the Norwegian Lund Commission (see Statewatch Vol. 7, no. 3). Negotiations will begin by the end of February.