Pierre-Henri revoked rights in protest against history's most terrible dictators: He could not fathom who they would end up protecting.

The fears of war had passed, but Europe was still weakened.

Adolf Hitler's holocaust had taken the lives of around six million Jews, because they were Jews.

Many wondered how this could happen.

The Frenchman Pierre-Henri Teitgen had clear vision.

"We needed war, and for some of us hostile occupation, to once again appreciate the value of humanism," he said (https://x.com/PACE_News/status/1456299689473679364) in 1949, at one of the first meetings under the European Council.

He was a resistance fighter during World War II and a prisoner of war. He was even arrested by the Gestapo, who tried to transport him by train to Germany. But he escaped (https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1997/04/08/pierre-henri-teitgen_3760760_1819218.html) and later became the justice and defense minister in France.

And so, among others, he – centrally for today – was the father of the European Convention on Human Rights, which he made recommendations for at the end of the 1940s.

The Convention was adopted in 1950 in Rome in the fight against, as Pierre-Henri Teitgen described it, "plagues" such as fascism, nazism, and communism.

But the legal colossus that came into the world to make all citizens equal and to prevent violations of basic human rights is now under attack, because the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, according to critics (https://www.berlingske.dk/politik/en-meget-omtalt-skikkelse-dukkede-op-til-storpolitisk-svaerdslag-paa), has forgotten its role.

"We are simply tired of not being able to expel more criminal foreigners from the country," said immigration and integration minister (https://www.berlingske.dk/politik/mette-frederiksen-og-giorgia-meloni-gaar-sammen-om-haardt-opgoer-med) Kaare Dybvad recently.

But how did it come to pass that Europe's autodefense against autocrats ended up protecting criminal foreigners in Denmark?

It was a guarantee for the future that dealt with protecting individuals. Not states.

Read here the entire Berlingske series (https://www.berlingske.dk/emne/opgoer-med-konventionerne), where we sharply question the possibilities and failings in the fight against the conventions.

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Trust can "erode"

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It is particularly the Convention's Article 8 on the right to family and private life that creates anger and frustration at the top of the Danish government.

For it is in several cases the Court of Human Rights' interpretation of this, which has prevented Denmark from expelling precisely the criminal foreigners that it wants to.

"If we do not manage to update the international rules so that they reflect the world as it is today, then support for them will erode," said Mette Frederiksen recently in an interview with Berlingske (https://www.berlingske.dk/politik/mette-frederiksen-goer-klar-til-haardt-opgoer-med-konventioner-det-er).

Therefore, the Prime Minister and the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, have gone together with seven other countries on an open protest letter, where the nations point out that the court decisively limits the possibility of making decisions in their own democracies.

Some examples from Denmark:

* The Iraqi man Zana Sharafanes expulsion from Denmark (https://www.berlingske.dk/politik/topforsker-om-mette-frederiksens-nye-alliance-politisk-pres-kan-aendre) by the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has been prevented, even though he was in possession of 57 kilos of cannabis and 107 grams of cocaine.

* The Afghan man Amir Shah Sharifis expulsion from Denmark (https://menneskeret.dk/monitorering/afgoerelsesdatabase/sharifi-v-denmark) by the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has been prevented despite illegal weapons possession with the intention of resale and possession of euphoric substances. The man has also a criminal history with violence.

* The Afghan man Omid Noorzaes expulsion from Denmark (https://menneskeret.dk/monitorering/afgoerelsesdatabase/noorzae-v-denmark) by the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has been prevented despite violence and threats, possession of euphoric substances and a knife and despite driving a car without a driver's license.

Common to the three cases was, according to the court in Strasbourg, that the men had stronger ties to Denmark than their home countries.

Steven L.B. Jensen is a senior researcher at the Institute for Human Rights and has a PhD in history with deep insight into the development of human rights, and when asked if it was not expulsion cases that had been in mind when, in the wake of World War II, human rights were written down.

"At that time, people were very concerned about marriages across the Iron Curtain and especially women in the Soviet Union, who could not leave the country to join their husbands. But that had nothing to do with expulsion cases," says the researcher.

Today, expulsion cases are a taboo topic when it comes to discussions about the Court of Human Rights, and it is what the government wants to prevent.

"I am completely convinced that those who wrote the texts at the time had no imagination to imagine that an asylum seeker from Afghanistan, who comes to a European country to seek protection, chooses to become a criminal and rape a young girl together with others," says Mette Frederiksen.

But legally, it should not surprise anyone that the Human Rights Convention, for example, can be used to protect criminal foreigners from expulsion, thinks professor of constitutional law at the University of Copenhagen Jens Elo Rytter.

"It is not a very creative or far-reaching interpretation to say that the expulsion of a foreigner who lives in Denmark constitutes an interference in his family and private life. I think it is obvious, legally speaking," says the professor, who has written a book about the Convention.

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Datidens S: Court was "the crown of the work"

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It is difficult to precisely determine what lay behind the writing of the European Convention on Human Rights, which was done.

But documents from the debates from the start of the 1950s in the Rigsdag – the name of Denmark's then parliament with two chambers – give a unique insight into why Danish politicians wanted a court to enforce the Convention.

One of the leaders was the Social Democratic stalwart Frode Jakobsen, who sat in the Folketing for the Social Democrats from 1945 to 1973.

"Two principles are of crucial importance for this Convention: The establishment of a court and the individual's, not just the state's, right to appeal when human rights are violated. That is important. With the Convention on Human Rights, it is not states that are to be protected, but people," he said and later:

"It is the court that is the crown of the work. First with it, the Convention on Human Rights becomes what we have dreamed of."

Or as it sounded from the many-year Venstre member of the Folketing Niels Elgaard about the European Convention on Human Rights:

"Its provisions do not deviate fundamentally from the traditional content of any civilized constitution."

Therefore, there was broad support among the established parties for a new international system with a set of rules to protect citizens against the state.

A new breakthrough of world historical character.

"They simply wanted a much stronger protection of the individual. The individual became a subject in international law and should be protected. It was about protecting individuals. Not states," says Steven L.B. Jensen.

Now, according to the government, we have ended up with a system that protects the wrong things.

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"Guarantee for the future"

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Steven L.B. Jensen explains that the European Convention on Human Rights was created as a democratic response to the totalitarian ideas that prevailed in the wake of World War II – both nazism, fascism, and communism.

"There was an awareness that the system we had had before was not strong enough. It is not always politicians' and states' first priority to give individuals rights," says the historian.

And the establishment of the Convention concretely meant getting assurance that one of the darkest chapters in world history would not repeat itself.

"Denmark had in this context focused on committing post-war Germany to the democratic and legal system's rule of law with reference to the brutal experiences of the war," says Steven L.B. Jensen and elaborates:

"It was a guarantee in the future. It was about ensuring that Germany was so committed to international standards that it could be done."

Jens Vedsted-Hansen, professor with decades of focus on human rights, warns today's politicians against making decisions without considering the consequences.

"They were aware that if all decisions were left to national politicians, it could end with extreme abuses as during the holocaust. That is the historical legacy that is the background, and it is some politicians who have a tendency to forget for the time being," says the professor.

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