The 2018 Danish “Burqa Ban”: Joining a European Trend and Sending a National Message

Authors

1 Professor of Professional Ethics & Human Rights and Associate Faculty at the Women’s & Gender Studies Program, Indiana University Northwest; Professor, Indiana University Graduate School, USA,

2 Lecturer of Philosophy, Department of Political Science, Philosophy & Religious Studies, Southeast Missouri State University, USA

Abstract

 
In May of 2018, the strategy of law-making was utilized in the Kingdom of Denmark to respond to or, more to the point, respond against full-face garments along the lines of a democratic and secular society in which values like transparency inform and guide interaction, dialogue, and communication. The new legal norm and measure, law L 219, does not refer expressly to the veil, nor to women, or to Islam. Nevertheless, the national Parliament in the Kingdom of Denmark proceeded on the basis of premises that reveal, upon scrutiny, why the particular provision that prohibits full-face veils is widely known and referred to as the “burqa ban”.Like the niqab, the burqa is a full-face veil. Numerically speaking, between 50 and 200 Muslim women wear such a veil, a fact that enters them into a minority within a minority statistics of 0.1 or 0.2 percent. However, to trivialize the burqa ban would be an error. This point applies to all sides, including the stakeholders who assumed the responsibility of drafting the new norm and measure. As the Danish legislators see things, law 219 is not an instance of “shooting sparrows with a cannon”. After this, the need to legislate appears to be an instance of following a trend in Europe and, at the same time, sending a message about the prevailing (Danish) ideology in contradistinction to “political Islam” that gives rise to unwanted phenomena like gender inequality, religious extremism, and terrorism. The authors of The 2018 Danish “Burqa Ban”: Joining a European Trend and Sending a National Messageattempt to give an in-depth account of the burqa ban and the political context for this, as provided by the negotiations that led up to the ban’s final adoption. One objective is to identify the various variables in the legal equation and, as another objective, capture the wider prescriptively-proscriptive direction of the Danish case, thereby also establishing a platform for further discussion, reflection, and response. (This part of the project – an intended component and outcome since the formulation of the original research task, labor division, and methodology – is published in the concurrent but separate article, The Burqa Ban: Legal Precursors for Denmark, American Experiences and Experiments, and Philosophical and Critical Examinations.)

Keywords

References

[1]. The “French trouble” refers to Muslim women who refuse to show their face in public or to non-Muslims’ attempts to rip off their veil.
[1]. Alf Ross, On Law and Justice, 97 (2004) (1959 1st ed.);
[1]. Ministry of Justice Proposal (and Commentaries) of 11 April 2018, supra note 3, at 2.
[1]. Staff Writer, Pape: Politiet skal ikke tvinge burkaer af kvinder, B.T., 18 April 2018
[1] The parliament recorded a 75-30 vote with 74 absentees. See National Parliament, Afstemning nr. 452 [Vote no. 452],
[1]. National Parliament Ban of 31 May 2018, supra note 1;
[1]. For this Might is Right factor, seeFelipe Fernández-Armesto, Truth: A History and Guide for the Perplexed 165-66 (2001).
[1]. See supra notes 33 and 71.
[1]. M. CherifBassiouni, Perspectives on International Criminal Justice, 50/2Virginia Journal of International Law 269, 272 (2010) [authors’ emphasis].

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