Denmark's Supreme Court to Decide if 'Non-Western' Label Is Racial Discrimination

Denmark's supreme court is set to decide whether calling someone a person with a “non-western” background counts as racial discrimination. The case lands in court on Friday and Monday, with a ruling expected later this month. At stake: an appeal from residents booted out of the Nøjsomhed-Sydvej estate in Helsingør, the city north of Copenhagen.

The evictions were carried out by the housing association, and the residents say the point was to slash the number of people with a “non-western” background so the area would stop qualifying as a “ghetto” under the legislation. They lost in lower courts. The government has argued the classification has nothing to do with ethnicity.

The law, now branded “parallel societies” by the Danish government, forces housing associations to cut not-for-profit housing by 40% by 2030 — through sales, demolitions or ending tenants' leases. It also calls for tearing down apartment blocks in areas once labelled “tough ghettos”, now “transformation areas”, where at least half of residents have a “non-western” background. Neighbourhoods with similar unemployment or crime levels but different demographics escape those measures.

Denmark has taken heat for years over the policy. Amnesty International has criticised it, and the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance said last month in a report that there has been “no positive change in the authorities' approach to the use of the 'non-western' category”. The UN committee on the elimination of racial discrimination has told Danish authorities to drop the terms “western” and “non-western” from law and policy, warning of a “discriminatory impact on ethnic minorities”.

In December the European court of justice ruled the legislation may be unlawful, giving fresh wind to a separate suit from residents of Copenhagen's Mjølnerparken estate, filed in 2020. More than 1,000 people were pushed out under the law. Legal experts say the Helsingør case is likely to force a domestic ruling that could shape the Mjølnerparken fight.

Susheela Math, head of legal at the NGO Systemic Justice, told the Guardian that if the supreme court links “non-western” background to ethnic origin and discrimination law, it “raises huge questions for the Danish state” and would force it to weigh scrapping the category altogether. She added that the state “will refer to ethnic origin when it suits them” but insists in court that “non-western” background has nothing to do with ethnicity. Nøjsomhed-Sydvej residents could return home if they win; Mjølnerparken residents would find that far harder, because their homes have been sold. The Danish ministry of children, senior citizens, and housing has been contacted for comment.