Ninety-fourth session

SUMMARY RECORD OF THE 2571st MEETING

Held at the Palais Wilson, Geneva,on Tuesday, 14 October 2008, at 10 a.m.

Chairperson: Mr. RIVAS POSADA

CONTENTS

CONSIDERATION OF REPORTS SUBMITTED BY STATES PARTIES UNDER ARTICLE 40 OF THE CONVENTION (continued)

Fifth periodic report of Denmark (continued)

The meeting was called to order at 10 a.m.

CONSIDERATION OF REPORTS SUBMITTED BY STATES PARTIES UNDER ARTICLE 40 OF THE CONVENTION (agenda item 7) (continued)

Fifth periodic report of Denmark (CCPR/C/DNK/5; CCPR/C/DNK/Q/5 and Add.1; HRI/CORE/1/Add.58) (continued)

1. At the invitation of the Chairperson, the Danish delegation took seats at the Committee table.

2.Mr. HERTZ (Denmark) said that the report of the committee set up to examine and assess the present system for considering complaints against the police was to be issued in autumn 2008 and no reform measures would be adopted before then.

3.Ms. NIEGEL (Denmark) said she would reply to the questions on violence against women. In May 2008, the Director of Public Prosecution had issued new instructions intended to enhance the effectiveness of investigations and prosecutions in cases of domestic violence. Regarding the existence of special training for police officers on the appropriate way of reacting to situations of domestic violence, she said that the curriculum for future police officers included a course on that subject. So far as care for women who were victims of violence was concerned, there were 45 homes in Denmark which took in victims and gave them the assistance, including counselling, that they needed. Those homes published reports on the incidence of violence against women which were funded under the action plan for gender equality. Responsibility for establishing such care establishments lay with local authorities, but half of the cost of operating them was borne by the State. Most of them had a website and were well known to the population at large, the police and social workers, so that women who needed their services could find them easily.

4.Since the situation of immigrant women was particularly precarious, initiatives had been taken specifically for them in addition to the general measures adopted in the action plan. For example, a helpline offering interpretation services enabled women of foreign origin who spoke no Danish to request and obtain the information they needed in the language of their choice. As well as the brochures and other information documents posted on the Internet and distributed in strategic places such as language schools and emergency care centres, DVDs explaining in pictures how to contact a home, the police or a lawyer had also been widely disseminated. The subject of violence against women was also dealt with in campaigns promoting gender equality. Additional funds had been allocated to emergency care centres to enable their staff to receive extra training on the cultural factors to be taken into account in their relations with women of foreign origin who had been victims of violence.

5.Since 2003, Denmark had endeavoured to promote women’s access to positions of responsibility in both the public and the private sectors. In 2005, a study commissioned by the Government had shown that companies having women executives made more profits. In addition, companies that signed the Charter intended to increase the number of women directors, which had been jointly prepared by public enterprises and private companies, undertook to have a certain number of women at higher levels.

6.Mr. HERTZ (Denmark), referring to cases of abuse or ill-treatment of prisoners, said that the written replies (CCPR/C/DNK/Q/5/Add.1) contained detailed information on the 13 cases in which the Department of Prisons and Probation had found violations of the Criminal Code or prison regulations committed by staff against prisoners.

7.Ms. HAUBERG (Denmark) said that the text of articles 31 and 32 of the Aliens Act was set out in the written replies (question 9) and that a copy of the English translation of the Act could be provided if necessary. Denmark considered itself bound to guarantee compliance with article 7 of the Covenant and article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights to aliens who might be expelled or deported.

8.Mr. FÆRKEL (Denmark) said that the investigation into the allegations that CIA aircraft transporting suspected terrorists in order to transfer them illegally had crossed Danish airspace more than 100 times and had made stops at Danish airports was still in progress, and the delegation could therefore not discuss that matter further with the Committee. The issue of diplomatic assurances was extremely complex and it seemed difficult to have a clear-cut position, as the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Committee against Torture showed. The inter-ministerial working group had not yet started its work on that question, but the first stage would be to determine what the law stated on the matter. Any attempt to answer the question whether the Government would have recourse to diplomatic assurances or not would be pure speculation. A member of the Committee had asked why suspected terrorists were not simply tried by national courts. Where national security was involved, the information gather for the investigation could not be divulged in a hearing, even in camera, for fear of compromising any future investigation.

9.Mr. PERROTTI (Denmark) said that everyone had the right to freedom of religion in Denmark, where there were more than 100 recognized and authorized religious communities which enjoyed a number of special rights, including the right to celebrate marriages that had the same legal validity as civil marriages and to have their own cemeteries, as well as advantages such as tax exemptions on financial donations from adherents. The principal special features of the National Church were the direct financial support it received from the State and the fact that it performed civil functions such as the registration of births.

10.Mr. JACOBSEN (Denmark) said that freedom of expression was considered to be one of the most important rights in Denmark, and any provision limiting it must be interpreted as strictly as possible. The provisions of the Criminal Code ensured the implementation of article 20 of the Covenant, which prescribed the legal prohibition of certain types of behaviour.

11.Ms. HAUBERG (Denmark) again stated that under the Aliens Act an alien could not be sent back to a country where he might be sentenced to death or subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and that that guarantee applied to all aliens, regardless of the acts they might have committed on Danish territory. Requests for asylum were considered in the first instance by the Immigration Service; if rejected, they were in principle automatically transmitted to the Refugee Appeals Board, an independent body that performing functions similar to those of a court, which made the final decision. The Danish Government considered that detention of asylum seekers should be as brief as possible and was planning to set a maximum time.

12.Mr. HERTZ (Denmark), referring to the legal framework of the fight against terrorism, said that on the day after the attacks of 11 September 2001 a first set of provisions had been adopted, introducing in particular the offence of terrorism into the Danish Criminal Code and setting out, through the Administration of Justice Act, the means available to the police and the prosecution service for carrying out investigations relating to suspected acts of terrorism. In 2006, new provisions prepared in the light of experience gained in combating terrorism had been added.

13.The delegation did not have enough time to go into detail on the various cases in which persons suspected of being terrorists had been put on trial. It should nevertheless be stated that none of those persons had been accused of having committed a terrorist act, merely of having attempted to do so. So far, no terrorist act had been committed on Danish territory, as all plans had been foiled before they had been carried out and those who had conceived them had been arrested. The sentences handed down in those cases did not, therefore, correspond to what they would have been for terrorists acts carried out in reality. In a case of an attempted bombing attack, the Supreme Court had described the use of explosives to cause death as an extremely serious form of terrorism and decided that any attempt to commit such an act should be punished by twenty years’ imprisonment, unless there were particularly attenuating or aggravating circumstances.

14.Mr. JACOBSEN (Denmark), replying to the question about the fate of the Danish citizen who had been detained by United States forces in Afghanistan in 2001-2002, said that the person concerned, who had been sent to Guantanamo Bay, had finally been repatriated to Denmark, where he had been allowed to change his identity in order to protect himself. Latest reports indicated that he was still living in Denmark.

15.Mr. HERTZ (Denmark), replying to the question whether any loopholes existed in Danish legislation that actually facilitated the use of psychological torture, said that the most eminent lawyers in Denmark had examined Danish legislation in minute detail in the light of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and had found no shortcomings. So far as the risk of impunity relating to the statute of limitations was concerned, the new Act adopted by Parliament in 2008 had repealed the statute of limitations for acts of torture.

16.Mr. O’FLAHERTY thanked the delegation for the concise and full replies it had given to the questions put to it at the previous session. He repeated his concern at the existence of a so-called National Church, which in his view inevitably created a hierarchy of faiths that was even more marked because that church performed civil functions. It could be difficult or even humiliating for people of another faith to apply to the National Church for a civil action such as the declaration of a birth. For those reasons, and although the situation did not entail an actual violation of article 18 of the Covenant, it would be desirable for Denmark to reconsider the statutes of its National Church and envisage removing the performance of civil functions from its activities.

17.Mr. AMOR, supporting Mr. O’Flaherty’s comment, said that the performance by a church of functions belonging to the State caused an undesirable confusion of areas of competence. What was truly problematical in the context of international human rights law, however, was the fact that the prerogatives of the various religious communities varied depending on their status. With regard to articles 19 and 20 of the Covenant, it would have been interesting to know how the delegation interpreted, in particular, paragraph 19, article 3, and paragraph 20, article 2.

18.Ms. CHANET repeated her question on the political reasons for not incorporating the Covenant into domestic law.

19.Mr. JACOBSEN (Denmark) said that the delegation could not reply to those comments, but took careful note of them and would transmit them to its Government, which would certainly consider them. Denmark was aware of the psychological problem that could be caused for believers of a particular faith by the need to apply to another church for civil functions such as the registration of births. The status of the Evangelical Lutheran Church as the National Church was enshrined in the Constitution and was therefore very difficult to change.

20.With respect to freedom of expression, as set out in article 20, paragraph 2, of the Covenant, Denmark was careful to punish incitement to hatred, which was prohibited by its Criminal Code; but it was also careful to protect to the maximum extent possible the right of everyone to express himself freely. It was concerned by the idea that that right could be compromised by political considerations. In March 2008, for example, a majority of States in the Human Rights Council had won an extension of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression to include monitoring of cases in which that right was improperly exercised. That step was alien to the mentality of Danes, for whom the free expression of opinions, even when they were unwelcome, was part of democracy.

21.Mr. HERTZ (Denmark) explained that the decision not to incorporate the Covenant into domestic law was a political decision of the majority in Parliament and that there was no legal obstacle to such incorporation. Legally, it was not necessary to incorporate the provisions of the Covenant into national legislation because since they were in any case a relevant source of law and could be invoked before the courts. Case law did in fact exist in the matter. True, the Covenant was invoked less often than the European Convention on Human Rights, but that was probably due to the fact that the European Court’s case law was far more detailed and covered a great many specific situations. Also, the population was more aware of Denmark’s European obligations than its international ones, which could be why people felt there was no point in invoking the Covenant if the Convention met their expectations.

22.The CHAIRPERSON thanked the delegation for its clarifications and invited it to reply to the second part of the list of issues (18-26).

23.Mr. BARLYNG (Denmark) said he could assure the Committee that the provisions of the Integration Act concerning the allocation of refugees among municipalities were compatible with the provisions of article 12. Their aim was to guarantee housing for persons who had just obtained the status of refugees and to enable them to participate in an initial integration programme. Refugees were able to change their place of residence, provided the new municipality in which they wished to live agreed to continue the initial programme. It was obliged to do so in certain cases, for example if the reason for the change of residence was to take up a job.

24.Mr. HERTZ (Denmark) said that the new Criminal Code for Greenland and the new Special Act on the Administration of Justice in Greenland had been adopted after the preparation of the report. They would enter into force on 1 January 2010. The judicial reform had required much effort (courts’ move to new premises, creation of new organizational structures and practices), which had entailed an accumulation of cases since the first year (2007), but it was starting to bring results. The length of trials in district courts had not yet been reduced, but in the case of the high courts it had been considerably improved. The implementation of new rules relating to consultation of documents in civil and criminal cases had not caused any difficulty. Before their entry into force, the judicial administration, an independent body, had sent general information about those rules, as well as non-binding guidelines for their implementation, to all the courts in the country. Just after their entry into force, the Prosecutor General had circulated information and instructions on how they should be interpreted and applied. However, the police had to meet an increasing number of requests, especially from the media, for access to those documents (especially police reports) concerning criminal cases that had already been closed, and that required substantial resources. The Prosecutor General was therefore studying ways of handling those requests and redefining access to documents concerning such cases. The legislative provisions for reform of the system of trial by jury had entered into force on 1 January 2008. Danish legislation was now in conformity with the provisions of article 14, paragraph 5, of the Covenant, since those convicted of the most serious criminal offences could now have both the verdict and the sentence reviewed by a higher court. It should, however, be stated that the right of appeal was still limited for less serious criminal offences, namely, those punishable by a fine of 3,000 crowns (about 600 euros) or less: in those cases, the right to have the verdict reconsidered was not absolute, because it was subject to the prior authorization of the Board of Appeal, the aim being to prevent the appeals court from facing an excessively heavy workload. Consequently, Denmark did not intend for the time being to withdraw its reservation to article 14, paragraph 5.

25.Ms. HAUBERG (Denmark) explained that the “24 years rule” had been adopted to promote integration and combat forced marriages. It did not govern the right to enter into marriage but merely set the minimum age at which a married couple could request family reunification. It therefore conformed to article 23 of the Covenant. In addition, family reunification was sometimes granted even if the persons concerned had not reached the age of 24, in exceptional cases or where refusal might be prejudicial.

26.Mr. FÆRKEL (Denmark) said that the High Court (Eastern District) had ruled on 20 August 1999 on the request of the Thule community of Greenland, which had been driven from its land in 1953 because of the construction of a military base. The High Court had granted compensation to the community but had not given it the right to return to the region or hunt there. On 28 November 2003, the Supreme Court had unanimously confirmed that decision. It had considered that the Thule community was not a distinct indigenous people within or co-existing with the Greenlandic people as a whole, which was consistent with the declaration made by the Danish Government and approved by the Greenland Home Rule Government in connection with the ratification of the ILO Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples that Denmark had only one indigenous people in the sense of the Convention, namely the indigenous population of Greenland or the Inuit. The Governing Body of ILO had reached the same conclusion when considering a case in March 2001. In January 1997 the Danish Prime Minister and the Head of the Greenland Home Rule Government had entered into an agreement concerning all questions relating to the Thule case. Furthermore, in accordance with Memorandum of Understanding of February 2003 between the Government of the United States of America and the Kingdom of Denmark, including the Home Rule Government of Greenland, the Dundas area has been removed from the Thule defence area and returned to Danish jurisdiction. As to the exercise of the rights guaranteed under article 27, the issue did not arise for the Thule community because it was not considered a separate indigenous people. In the case of the German minority, those rights were protected by the general provisions of the Constitution and various other texts relating to fundamental rights. Moreover, the general rights of the two national minorities on either side of the Danish-German border were protected by the Copenhagen-Bonn Declarations of 1955. The Copenhagen Declaration guaranteed, among other provisions, that a person might freely profess his loyalty to German nationality and culture and that such a profession of loyalty must not be contested or verified by the authorities. The Bonn Declaration laid down the same principle with respect to loyalty to Danish nationality and culture. It was also stipulated that that the two minorities must be able to preserve their identity and their linguistic and cultural characteristics. Lastly, the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities were also applicable to the German minority. Roma were not registered specifically as such by the authorities, but as nationals of their country of origin. As a result, no information about the number of Roma was available. It could, however, be said that they resided throughout the country, although most of them lived in the areas of Copenhagen and Elsinore, and that many Roma were well integrated into Danish society, while others had difficulty adjusting to life in Denmark.

27.The Covenant had been published in Danish, English, French and Greenlandic, as had the legislation. It has been printed in a number of publications, and was available on several websites, including that of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The periodic reports were also available on that website. They were also forwarded to the relevant parliamentary committees and to NGOs, as were the concluding observations of the Committee, which were also the subject of press releases. The Ministry of Justice had published a manual on the procedures for petitioning human rights bodies, including the Committee.

28.Mr. HERTZ (Denmark) said that the Danish Police College had enhanced human rights training and education in 2006 and 2007. There were courses, in particular, on police treatment of victims of torture, non-discrimination and Denmark’s international human rights obligations.

29.The CHAIRPERSON thanked the delegation for its replies and invited members of the Committee who wished to do so to put further questions.

30.Mr. IWASAWA noted that refugees were prohibited de facto from choosing their place of residence if a local authority’s refusal to assume a person’s initial programme could have an impact on his permanent residence permit. More detailed explanations on that issue would be welcome.

31.With respect to the Thule case, the delegation was invited to comment on the allegations, which the Committee had already mentioned in its previous concluding observations, that the claimants had been urged to reduce the amount of their claim in order to conform to the limits set by the regulations governing legal aid. In addition, the Supreme Court had considered that the Thule community was not a distinct indigenous people, contrary to that community’s own perception of itself: it would be interesting to know the grounds for that conclusion. In its concluding observations of 2006, the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination had asked Denmark to pay particular attention to the way in which indigenous peoples identified themselves. It would also be interesting to know what effect the return of the Dundas area had had on the Thule community. Lastly, the delegation had stated that article 27 was not applicable to that community: did that mean that the Thule community was not considered either as a distinct indigenous people or as a minority? Clarification would be welcome on the treatment that the German minority received under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, and the content of the recommendations made by the Ministerial Committee on that question and how Denmark had followed them up. Lastly, with respect to the Roma, the delegation had admitted that some of them had difficulties in integrating. It would be interesting to know what measures had been adopted in that regard and why that community was not considered to be a national minority under the Framework Convention.

32.Ms. PALM emphasized the praiseworthy efforts of the Danish Government to combat violence against women. She welcomed with satisfaction the adoption of the new Greenlandic Criminal Code and the new Act on the Administration of Justice in Greenland. However, as the Committee had not been informed of the contents of those two instruments, it was difficult for it to assess whether they were in their conformity with the Covenant. More detailed information on that subject would therefore be welcome.

33.It was stated in the report that one of the aims of the judicial reform was to reduce the length of trials and that targets had been set for doing that. It would be interesting to know the current duration of a trial, from the time when an action was brought before a district court to the final verdict by an appeal court or the Supreme Court, as well as the targets set to reduce that duration and the date on which they were expected to be attained.

34.Mr. O’FLAHERTY said that although the reform of the system of trial by jury was a good thing, it was regrettable that in some cases the possibility of appeal was subject to the authorization of the Board of Appeal. Details of the workings of the system for second-instance granting of leave to appeal would enable the Committee to understand how the possibility of exercising judicial rights was guaranteed. He would therefore like to know the composition of the Board, whether it was possible to be represented in it and what measures were taken to help those who did not speak Danish to lodge an appeal. The argument that leave to appeal had to be requested only in cases relating to less serious offences was not convincing, since any criminal conviction, even a minor one, could have serious consequences for the person concerned.

35.He asked whether documents concerning the Committee were also translated into the language of the Faroe Islands, German and any other language that was important in Denmark. In that connection, the Danish Government might use the dialogue that it was to have at the national level for the submission of its report in the framework of the Universal Periodic Review, so as to increase awareness of human rights among the population.

36.He would like to know whether the purpose of the training given to the police on the victims of torture was preventive or whether it consisted in teaching police officers to treat victims of torture with respect, in which case he would like to know who could perform those acts. He asked why training for police officers was given in English and whether the training they received in ethics fully reflected the provisions of the Covenant.

37.Ms. MOTOC thanked the delegation for its clear and direct replies. She wondered whether the change to the law on the integration of aliens, which stipulated that that a non-resident could join and live with his or her spouse only when both had reached the age of 24 was compatible with the Covenant.

38.On the question of minorities, Denmark had stated in the reservation which it had entered to the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities that Germans living in the north of the country were the only minority recognized: that suggested that further information on the situation of other minority groups, such as Germans living in other parts of the country or indigenous populations, was needed, in particular in order to know what their rights were.

39.Sir Nigel RODLEY said he did not quite understand the delegation’s reply on the rights of the Thule community and did not know whether it meant that indigenous peoples were not considered as minorities under article 27 of the Covenant or that the Thule community was not considered to be an indigenous people. Article 27 related to minorities, not peoples, and it was difficult to see how members of the Thule community could not be covered by that article. He would be glad to hear the delegation’s view on that point.

40.Mr. LALLAH noted that the Covenant was less well known in Denmark than the European Convention on Human Rights. To prevent the two instruments being regarded as equivalent, an in-depth study of the two texts should be conducted to determine their differences. In that connection, the General Observation on article 27 could help the State party better to understand how the obligations stemming from it differed from those laid down by the Convention. It would be important, in particular, for the police to be given training that highlighted the differences between the Covenant and the Convention.

The meeting was suspended at 11.40 a.m. and resumed at 12 noon .

41.Mr. FÆRKEL (Denmark) explained that the German minority was recognized as a minority under the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. That instrument did not contain a definition of the term “minority”, but its provisions could be interpreted as covering groups of the population who had been affected by border changes stemming from the upheavals of European history, as had been the case between Denmark and Germany. The declaration made by Denmark at the time of the deposit of the instrument of ratification, which had stated that the Framework Convention would apply to the German minority, could be regarded as excluding other minorities. The Roma were therefore not involved, because they had not been affected by historical changes in national territories. The delegation was not able to give details of the follow-up to the recommendations of the Committee of Ministers on the implementation of the Framework Convention. On the other hand, it knew that the members of the Framework Convention’s Advisory Committee had visited the areas of the country where the German minority was most represented several times. The problems facing some Roma were chiefly social. The Roma were covered by the national social protection system. Measures were also taken at the local level to take their specific needs, especially relating to access to education, into account. The enrolment rates of Roma children were still inadequate but a great effort was being made to rectify that situation.

42.The Thule community belonged to the Inuits of Greenland, who were an indigenous population; the latter was made up of many tribes which had their own languages but did not constitute individual indigenous groups. Some members of the Thule community had invoked the fact that they considered themselves to be a separate indigenous group in order to support their claims in the Thule case. That argument had not, however, been accepted either by the Supreme Court or by the ILO. Whether or not that community constituted a minority was a different question, since the criteria applied were not necessarily the same. In any event, technically it could not be recognized as a minority under the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention.

43.Mr. O’FLAHERTY said he was concerned by the fact that human rights instruction was given to the police in English. Having found in other contexts that it was usually minor matters that were taught in a foreign language, he was worried that human rights was not sufficiently central to police training. With respect to the translation of periodic reports and concluding observations, he took note of the delegation’s explanations but nevertheless urged the State party to study the possibility of having the Committee’s concluding observations translated also into German.

44.Sir Nigel RODLEY noted that the population of Greenland as a whole was considered to be an indigenous people, but not the sub-groups of which it was made up. Nor did those sub-groups constitute minorities under the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention. Nevertheless, it was difficult to agree that those communities could not exercise the rights set out in article 27 of the Covenant.

45.Ms. MOTOC said that the definition of minorities in international law was leas clear than that of indigenous peoples. However, one basic element was now accepted, that relating to the way in which groups of the population identified themselves. It was true that that essential criterion did not stem from any codified identification but rather from a customary definition that was commonly accepted and applicable under article 27 of the Covenant.

46.Ms. THOMSEN (Denmark) noted that the Thule community, which called itself the Inuit (“great men”), had its own municipal council, elected representatives to Parliament and took a full part in the life of Greenlandic society. It was not an actual minority but rather a sub-group, whose language was a dialect of Inuktitut. There were a great many dialects of that kind in the arctic region and it was unthinkable that they should be translated, for that would be to condemn them to disappear. Greenlandic was the first language taught in schools and was accepted as a common language for practical reasons, although that did not prevent the use of local dialects.

47.With regard to the return of the Thule defence zone (Dundas area), it should be pointed out that a body consisting of representatives of the Danish, Greenlandic and United States authorities had been made responsible specifically for matters concerning that zone, and its activities had so far been satisfactory and useful. The municipality of Qaanaaq had always been associated with the negotiations which had led to the return agreement.

48.The CHAIRPERSON thanked the Danish delegation for all its replies and expressed satisfaction with the detailed information provided on the measures adopted by the Danish Government to promote the rights of the populations of Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

49.Recapitulating the Committee’s main subjects of concern, he emphasized the need for States parties to examine the possibility of withdrawing their reservations to the Covenant. The Committee had been able to note some progress in the Danish Government’s position on that matter, as evidenced by the arrangements made for the reconsideration of conviction and sentencing, which were in accordance with article 14, paragraph 5, of the Covenant. However, the two levels of jurisdiction created from 2008 would not be enough to satisfy the requirements of article 14, as exceptions could still be made to the right of appeal depending on the seriousness of the offence. The Committee also noted with concern the fact that the provisions of the Covenant had not been incorporated into domestic legislation and were merely one of the possible bases for decisions by courts, which were therefore not bound to apply them systematically. He welcomed the measures taken by the Government to encourage greater participation and representation of women in Danish society and recognized the progress made in that sphere. Nevertheless, inequalities remained, especially in the private sector, where women’s access to positions of responsibility was very limited. He could therefore only encourage the State party to accompany its legislative measures with large-scale awareness campaigns and specific action, without which there could be no profound change. Despite the explanations given by the delegation, he continued to wonder about the practice of solitary confinement in the prison system and was concerned that no measures had been taken to limit its duration. Lastly, with respect to freedom of religion, he remained concerned by the special status of the National Church, which could be a source of discrimination and inequality among citizens.

50.Mr. JACOBSEN (Denmark) repeated Denmark’s firm commitment fully to meet its international obligations and thanked the Committee for all their questions and observations, which would be duly transmitted to the competent authorities.

51. The Danish delegation withdrew.

The meeting rose at 1 p.m.