Grundlovsforhør


Grundlovsforhør is the Danish form of arraignment. It is a common legal procedure within the Kingdom of Denmark consisting of Denmark, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands where the Police have authority to detain a person suspected of a crime for up to 24 hours. Within 24 hours, the person must be arraigned if the police wish to maintain the detention. This rule is guaranteed in the Danish constitution and exists to protect citizens from arbitrary imprisonment. It was first introduced in Denmark's first Constitution of 1849, and has been preserved largely unchanged through all subsequent revisions of the constitution.
At such an arraignment, the defendant is brought before a judge, who must decide on the police's detention request. The arraignment can end in one of four ways:
  1. The accused has the arrest maintained to give the police time to substantiate the charge. Maintenance can take place for up to 3x24 hours, after which the judge must decide on further custody.
  2. The accused may be remanded in custody if the judge believes there is reasonable suspicion of the charge and if certain circumstances are met. Typically, remand is made to prevent the suspect from obstructing the investigation.
  3. The accused will be released if the judge does not believe that there is reasonable suspicion, or if the provisions of the Administration of Justice Act do not allow custody in the situation in question.
  4. The case is decided as a confession case. Such a decision is called a summary judgment.
This procedure is secured in section 71, subsection 3 of the current version of the Constitution of Denmark.
Original Danish:
One additional effect of this constitutional right is that the traditional phrasing of a police arrest in Denmark includes a statement of the time of day as in "Time is 5:39 and you are under arrest", implying that they can only hold the arrestee until that time the next day