Danishes

 

Little story out of Denmark for you to consider today. Seems a former government minister was sentenced to "60 days in prison [...] for illegally ordering the division of 23 asylum-seeking couples in 2016". Those couples, however, consisted of women (or, girls, as the case may be) under the age of 18. Inger Støjberg had merely temporarily separated the couples while investigating if the marriages were legitimate.

Here in the US, it would be extraordinary and unprecedented for a government official to be convicted for policy decisions. In general, government officials are protected from personal liability if they were acting in an official and good faith capacity. An illegal policy decision here would result in the policy being challenged, overturned, and perhaps those subjected to the policy being compensated in some manner. No court-imposed harm would come to the government official, however.

Is the personal liability system in Denmark a better way to treat government functionaries or is the US system of shielding them better?

Source 1

Source 2

I asked the question I was immediately interested in. But there are a ton of other interesting questions that follow. She won't spend a day in jail, Denmark allows at-home confinement for less than six months sentences. Is that cool? Was Støjberg out of line for ordering the couples separated? Seems like a reasonable concern to me. One of the articles hints that had she made the order to separate couples individually instead of a blanket order, it would have been okay. And then there is the idea of a left-leaning government being vehemently opposed to immigration and ethnic enclaves on their territory. Neat.