Denmark’s seven partly closed residential institutions for children and young people should do more to ensure that the institutions have sufficient knowledge of the special rules and legal safeguards that apply when force is used in these institutions.

This appears from the Ombudsman’s new thematic report on institutions for children after carrying out monitoring visits to Denmark’s seven partly closed residential institutions and partly closed wards in residential institutions.

For instance, the institutions have a special right to detain the children and young people by locking outer doors and windows for periods of time. There is also more extended access to physically restraining a child or a young person.

‘Physical restraint and detainment are severe interventions in relation to children and young people. It is therefore important that the institutions ensure that they have sufficient knowledge of the special rules and procedural guarantees that apply to such interventions’, says Parliamentary Ombudsman Christian Britten Lundblad.

Must inform of rights 

In the report, the Ombudsman also points out that the institutions must generally become better at informing the young people and their parents about their rights in relation to the use of force and other interventions in the right to self-determination and about their right to complain.

It is the Ombudsman’s impression that staff at the visited institutions were generally committed and reflective in the cooperation with the children and the young people. And that the institutions were focused on reducing the use of force, for instance by means of de-escalating behaviour and dialogue with the young people.

The Ombudsman chose to focus on the partly closed residential institutions and wards precisely because of the special rules applying to the use of force in these institutions and wards and because recent years have seen several instances of critical mention of conditions in partly closed institutions.

The Ombudsman will discuss his recommendations and a number of other observations from the monitoring visits with, respectively, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Housing and the Ministry of Children and Education.

Read the Ombudsman’s thematic report in its entirety.

Further details:

Director of International Relations Klaus Kinnerup Hede, kkh@ombudsmanden.dk

FACTS

Generally on the Ombudsman’s monitoring visits

• The Parliamentary Ombudsman carries out regular monitoring visits in public and private institutions, where people are or can be deprived of their liberty.
• The monitoring visits are carried out in cooperation with the Danish Institute for Human Rights and DIGNITY – Danish Institute Against Torture, which contribute with human rights and medical expertise.
• The Ombudsman’s Children’s Division carries out monitoring visits to institutions for children.
• Every year, a theme is chosen for the year’s monitoring visits to both institutions for children and institutions for adults.
• Every year, a report is made in which the Ombudsman summarises and communicates the most important results of the year’s thematic visits.
• The Ombudsman regularly makes public which institutions etc. he has visited, and he also makes public the concluding letters to the institutions, in Danish.

Les 24 et 25 juin 2025, l’AOMF a organisé à Tirana, en collaboration avec l’Association internationale des procureurs et poursuivants francophones (AIPPF), un séminaire dédié à « La protection des lanceurs d’alerte dans la lutte contre les atteintes à l’intégrité dans les services publics et la corruption : regards croisés des médiateurs et des procureurs ». Cette rencontre a permis un échange riche entre deux réseaux institutionnels clés de l’espace francophone et a été rendue possible grâce au soutien de l’Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), présente à l’événement. La réussite de cette rencontre est également le fruit de l’engagement logistique de l’Avocat du peuple albanais, institution membre de l’AOMF, qui a une nouvelle fois témoigné son attachement aux travaux de l’association.

À l’issue des échanges, les participants ont adopté la Déclaration de Tirana, qui réaffirme le droit de toute personne à signaler en toute sécurité des faits répréhensibles et la nécessité de protéger les lanceurs d’alerte contre les représailles.
Ce texte souligne également le rôle essentiel des médiateurs et des procureurs dans la prévention de la corruption et la promotion d’une gouvernance transparente et responsable. Elle appelle à renforcer la coopération entre ces institutions et à promouvoir une culture commune de l’intégrité publique.

Par cette déclaration, l’AOMF et l’AIPPF rappellent que l’alerte est un acte citoyen au service de l’intérêt général, et que sa protection constitue un devoir collectif essentiel au renforcement de l’État de droit et de la confiance des citoyens dans les institutions publiques.

During a panel discussion ‘Is the Union prepared to shield European democracy?’, FRA highlighted the importance of a rights-based approach to tackling threats to democracy.

Speaking alongside European Chief Prosecutor Laura Codruța Kövesi, Czech MEP Danuše Nerudová and Senior Fellow Dalibor Roháč of the American Enterprise Institute, FRA underlined key findings from its Fundamental Rights Survey, and stressed the need to rebuild trust in our societies through participation and accountability, to protect civil society space and to uphold information integrity in the digital age.

Beyond this panel, the Agency also contributed to several other discussions, bringing in FRA’s rights-based approach and evidence on digitalisation, civic space, inclusion, and public trust as drivers of democratic resilience. 

On November 17, 2022, the Public Defender of Georgia filed a constitutional claim[1] with the Constitutional Court of Georgia, challenging Order No. 663 of the Minister of Justice of Georgia of November 30, 2020 - “On Approval of the Procedure for Recording Injuries of Accused/Convicted Persons Sustained as a Result of Alleged Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment in Penitentiary Institutions”. In particular, according to the disputed rule, the patient’s consent to a medical examination was a mandatory prerequisite for a doctor to record prisoners’ visible injuries and refer them to the relevant investigative body.

After accepting the constitutional claim for consideration on its merits, the Ministry of Justice of Georgia informed the Constitutional Court that by Order No. 1096 of the Minister of Justice of Georgia of July 11, 2025, amendments were made to the normative act challenged in Constitutional Claim No. 1748, and the current regulation completely eliminated the issue raised by the plaintiff.

The Public Defender of Georgia welcomes the decision of the Minister of Justice, which echoes the Public Defender's request - even in the absence of the prisoner's consent, the doctor should draw up a certificate based on the patient's physical examination and inform the relevant body/official about alleged torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.