Denmark made history last June when it became Europe’s first country to pass a whistleblower protection law to comply with new EU rules. Media outlets, law firms and anti-corruption advocates offered their praise.
The compliments came too soon. Today, in the first-ever whistleblower case to reach the Danish Supreme Court, judges ruled against a city employee who exposed the improper withholding of retirement and disability benefits.
Bitten Vivi Jensen was working in the rehabilitation office in the Frederiksberg municipality of Copenhagen when she learned officials were trying to save money by denying payments to needy citizens. She raised her concerns to managers but was ignored and dismissed from her job in 2016.
Jensen then gave 90 case files to prominent Danish journalist Ulrik Dahlin of the newspaper Information, which published a lengthy exposé about Frederiksberg’s failings in 2017. The municipality’s response was to file criminal charges against Jensen for confidentiality violations. She was fined 5,000 Danish kroner (about US$770) and given a suspended sentence of 10 days in jail.
After losing her case in the District and High courts, she appealed to the Supreme Court. Her attorney, Mads Pramming of the Copenhagen firm Ehmer Pramming, argued Jensen should be protected under Denmark’s new whistleblower law, which took effect last Dec. 17. Even though the case originated several years earlier, the court agreed to use the case as an opportunity to interpret the new...
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