Danes’ right to fly foreign flags goes to country’s highest court

Senior judges to rule on 19th century law after couple ordered to take down US banner

DENMARK’S supreme court will rule on whether its citizens should be allowed to fly a foreign flag after a couple were ordered to take down their star-spangled banner.

The court hearing will be the final chapter in what has turned into a saga for Martin Hedegard and his wife, Rikke, who were first told to take down the American flag in 2017.

According to the law, Danes are only allowed to fly the flag of another nation in public if they receive special permission from authorities – and even then, a Danish flag at least equal in size needs to be erected next to it.

The Hedegards came to the attention of the authorities when they hoisted the US flag to convey their enthusiasm for rockabilly culture, according to a report in the Jydske Vestkysten newspaper.

A month or so later, a neighbour made a complaint to police, who ordered the couple to take down the flag or face a fine.

The law dates back to a royal decree from 1854, which was reaffirmed by the ministry of justice in 1915, when it was intended to affirm Danish neutrality in the First World War.

Just one person is known to have been fined for illegal flag-raising since: a man who flew a Soviet flag in the 1930s.

However, the Hedegards argue that they were not acting in bad faith, but instead honouring their deep affection for American culture.

“We feel we are a part of American culture in Denmark,” Mrs Hedegard told Jydske Vestkysten in 2017.

“I could understand if it was a Nazi or Isis flag, but an American flag, I don’t understand that at all. But it’s probably because [complainants] are not part of the culture.”

The neighbour who made the complaint told the press: “I thought I had seen enough of it and it was too much.”

The case has since slowly made its way through the Danish court system, with judges in disagreement over whether a royal decree from the mid19th century still has the force of law in modern Denmark.

A district court in the region of Kolding acquitted the couple of the crime, arguing that the flag ban was no longer legally binding. But that ruling was overturned by the high court in November last year.

“I believe that there is a great interest in society in finding out whether there is really a basis for enforcing an order that is over 100 years old,” said Carsten Hove, the Hedegards’s lawyer, after the high court ruling.

He added that the royal decree “was made under completely different circumstances than in today’s Denmark, where much emphasis is placed on freedom of expression”.

Exceptions to the flag-raising rules allow Danes to fly the flags of the Faroe Islands and Greenland.

Danes may also fly the flags of other Nordic nations, the EU flag and the UN flag, according to ministry of justice guidelines.