Communicated on 16 May 2017
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 7841/14
Jura LEVAKOVIC
against Denmark
lodged on 13 January 2014
STATEMENT OF FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Jura Levakovic, is a Croatian national who was born in 1987 and is living in Denmark. He was represented before the Court by Mr Gert Dyrn, a lawyer practising in Kolding.
A. The circumstances of the case
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
3. The applicant was born in the Netherlands and arrived in Denmark when he was approximately 9 months old. He remained in Denmark, together with his parents and three brothers.
4. The applicant has a criminal record. Before he turned 18 years old, he had been convicted four times by a City Court: on 8 May 2003 of, inter alia, drug offences, with a sentence of four months’ imprisonment, suspended; on 1 October 2003 for armed robbery, with a sentence of one year and six months’ imprisonment, of which one year suspended; on 24 June 2004 for, inter alia, theft and possession of weapons, with a sentence of one year and four months’ imprisonment; and on 12 May 2005 for, inter alia, robbery and sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment. He was released on 10 July 2006 with two hundred and fifty-five days remaining, suspended for two years.
5. After having reached the age of majority the applicant was convicted a number of times.
6. By a City Court judgment of 7 September 2006 he was convicted of handling stolen property and sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment.
7. By a City Court judgment of 11 June 2008, he was convicted of robbery and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. Moreover, the City Court ordered the applicant’s expulsion, suspended and with two years’ probation. He was released on 28 January 2010.
8. By a City Court judgment of 25 March 2010, he was convicted of theft and sentenced to thirty days’ imprisonment.
9. By a judgment of the High Court, acting as an appeal instance, on 9 November 2010 he was convicted of robbery and sentenced to one year and three months’ imprisonment. In addition, his expulsion was again ordered, suspended and with two years’ probation.
10. By a City Court judgment of 27 February 2012 the applicant was convicted of attempting to escape from prison. No additional sentence was imposed.
11. In the meantime, on 12 November 2011 the applicant was arrested and charged with offences under the Penal Code, inter alia two counts of robbery, the first committed in a private home on 4 October 2011, and the next in a bank on 24 October 2011. The applicant was also charged with possession of arms, threatening a witness, drug offences and handling stolen property.
12. The case was heard by the City Court of Copenhagen (Københavns Byret). Two co-accused from the applicant’s family were also on trial. The applicant was heard and pleaded not guilty to the robberies. He explained that he was 25 years old. Except for eight months spent, as a baby, in the Netherlands, he had lived all his life in Denmark, where all his family lived, including parents, three brothers and eighty other family members. He had never been to Croatia or the former Yugoslavia. He had no family there and did not speak the language. He had been diagnosed with ADHD and took medication for that. He had had a girlfriend for 2 years and 3 months. They wanted to marry and have children.
13. The Aliens Authority (Udlændingestyrelsen) noted that the applicant had previously been convicted of similar criminal offences and sentenced to imprisonment of a total of four years and ten months. Moreover, the applicant’s mother had been granted a residence permit in 1987 on the grounds of her marriage with the applicant’s father. She had left in June 1988, but returned in November 1988 with the applicant, who was 9 months old at the time, and who was granted a residence permit until March 2005, later extended to April 2012. The length of his legal stay in Denmark was therefore calculated at approximately sixteen years and two months. The conditions for ordering an expulsion were set out in the Aliens Act (Udlændingeloven), section 22 no. 6 or section 24 no. 1, read in conjunction with the former. It was also noted that the applicant had been to school for 7 years, but had no other education, and at the relevant times had received social welfare.
14. By a judgment of 12 December 2012, the City Court convicted the applicant in accordance with the indictment and sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment. It attached special weight to the fact that he was convicted of two robberies and had previously been convicted of similar crimes.
15. In addition, by virtue of section 22 no. 6 in conjunction with section 26, subsection 2, of the Aliens Act, the City Court ordered the applicant’s expulsion, with a permanent ban on his return.
16. More concretely as to the expulsion order, the City Court analysed the case in the light of the Court’s case-law, notably Maslov v. Austria [GC], no. 1638/03, ECHR 2008 and a Supreme Court judgment (see Danish Weekly Law Reports (UfR) 2012.225H).
It noted from the outset that the applicant had lived almost all his life in Denmark and that his family all lived there. He had a Croatian passport, but no ties to Croatia, had no family or friends there, and apparently did not speak the language. He only spoke Roma besides Danish. He had not established a family himself, in that he was neither married nor had children. The fact that he had had a girlfriend for approximately 2 years should not be given any importance, as this relationship had been created at a time when the girlfriend was aware, or should have been aware, of the applicant’s crimes. He had 7 years of schooling but no other education. He had never had a job, but had always lived off social welfare. He had been an abuser of hashish and had apparently suffered psychosis on several occasions in this connection.
Thus the City Court stated that, even though the applicant had lived all his life in Denmark, he had to be considered very poorly integrated into Danish society. Nevertheless, having regard to the fact that he had spent his youth and schooling in Denmark and had no ties to Croatia, in the proportionality test, the crimes committed would have to be very serious.
The applicant had been convicted several times of robbery. Two judgments concerned robberies committed before the applicant turned 18 years old, namely one incident at a post office in 2003, when the applicant was barely 16 years old, and another judgment concerned, inter alia, two street robberies in 2004/2005, when he was 17 years old. Both judgments concerned amounts of less significant values. After the applicant turned 18, he had been convicted twice for robbery, once on 11 June 2008 when he was convicted of one street robbery and one robbery in a shop, and sentenced to two years imprisonment and a suspended expulsion order. Then he had been convicted of street robbery by an appeal judgment of the High Court of 9 November 2010, and sentenced to 1 year and 3 months in prison, and an expulsion order suspended for two years. In addition, there had been several judgments for theft and offences against property. Overall, the applicant, who was 25 years old at the relevant time, had been punished and served sentences totalling 1,755 days, equal to four years and ten months, since he had turned 15.
The crimes under adjudication in the case before it concerned a robbery in a private home and an armed bank robbery, both committed in October 2011, thus during the probation period for the most recent suspended expulsion order. The crimes adjudicated by the appeal judgment of 9 November 2010 were committed during the probation period for the first suspended expulsion order. In the City Court’s assessment, the nature and seriousness of the crimes at hand, held against the previous judgments for similar crimes, and the fact that the applicant had twice violated the conditions for the suspended expulsion orders, weighed considerably for the applicant’s unconditional expulsion. Having regard thereto, the City Court found that overall there were such weighty reasons that the applicant should be expelled with a permanent ban on his return and that such an order would not be in breach of Denmark’s international obligations.
17. On appeal, by a judgment of 26 August 2013 the High Court of Eastern Denmark (Østre Landsret - henceforth “the High Court”), upheld the conviction, the sentence and the expulsion order.
18. Leave to appeal to the Supreme Court (Højesteret), was refused by the Appeals Permission Board (Procesbevillingsnævnet) on 12 December 2013.
19. In December 2013, pursuant to Council Framework Decision 2008‑909-JHA of 27 November 2008 on the application of the principle of mutual recognition to judgments in criminal matters imposing custodial sentences or measures involving deprivation of liberty for the purpose of their enforcement in the European Union, as amended by Council Framework decision 2009-299-JHA of 26 February 2009, the Ministry of Justice requested the Croatian authorities to take over the enforcement of the sentences imposed on the applicant by the High Court judgment of 9 November 2010 and the High Court judgment of 26 August 2013.
20. The applicant is still serving his sentence in Denmark.
B. Relevant domestic law
21. The relevant provisions of the Aliens Act (udlændingeloven) relating to expulsion were recently set out in detail in Salem v. Denmark, no. 77036/11, §§ 49-52, 1 December 2016.
COMPLAINT
22. The applicant complained that his expulsion to Croatia would give rise to a violation of Article 8 of the Convention.
QUESTION
Having regard, in particular, to the length of the applicant’s stay in Denmark as well as the nature of ties with his country of origin, would an implementation of the order to expel the applicant from Denmark be in breach of Article 8 of the Convention?
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