Today is Constitution Day in Denmark, the country’s equivalent of the Fourth of July. It is also exactly one year since the latest Danish elections, which brought the Social Democrats to power with Mette Frederiksen as Prime Minister. The party received 26 percent of the vote, not a strong showing, but the right wing was divided and lost votes to the other left-wing parties. The Social Democrats were criticized by traditional left-wing voters particularly for moving to the right on immigration in an attempt to take voters from the nationalistic Danish People’s Party. 

When the coronavirus hit, Frederiksen appealed to the population with the traditional social democratic values of a strong welfare state, especially the healthcare sector, and solidarity across classes in the common cause of containing the epidemic. She was considered almost authoritarian in her adherence to the precautionary principle during the lockdown phase, but her popularity soared. Although the government’s policy was criticized by the right-wing parties and the private sector for being too hard on the economy, Frederiksen won admiration even from former critics for her consistency and ability to communicate effectively to the citizenry. 

Triumph of the welfare state

The Social Democrats are now polling at 34 percent (DK) of the electorate, a level they haven’t seen for decades. National leaders almost always see a boost in popularity during a crisis, but Frederiksen has maintained her support even after segments of the population began to express impatience with the gradual reopening of the economy and disclosures of the government’s rejection of the Health Authority’s recommendation came to light. According to political commentator Erik Holstein, “The Social Democratic Party has succeeded in creating a story that the solution to the coronavirus crisis is the social democratic welfare state.” Holstein expects the polling number to decline somewhat but thinks there is a good possibility that the party can retain some of its new adherents and regain its clear position as the country’s largest party.

Celebrating Constitution Day on Zoom

Denmark has seen some protests against the lockdown that claim that the threat of the coronavirus has been vastly exaggerated and the government is using the crisis as a pretext to implement authoritarian controls on the population. But such charges bordering on conspiracy theory have never gained a substantial following. On the occasion of Constitution Day, however, the issue is being raised in another quarter, the Institute for Human Rights (DK). Louise Holck, the head of the organization, notes that this year Constitution Day must be observed in a different way than usual because our freedom of assembly is being limited. 

Holck asks how long Danish citizens’ rights should be restricted as drastically as they have been during the crisis. The right to assembly is one of the fundamental rights in a democratic society, and it is closely related to the essential right to expression. It is in gatherings that citizens express and exchange ideas. The Constitution says that citizens “have a right to gather unarmed without advance permission.” It says nothing about restrictions on peaceful gatherings, but the prevailing interpretation is that such restrictions should be “necessary and proportional.”

Speed up the reopening

Holck does not deny that the limitation on gatherings was necessary when the lockdown was announced on March 13 and while the epidemic continued to pose a clear threat to the population. Her position is similar to that of conservative party leaders, who questioned only the extent and duration of lockdown. But now, as the number of patients hospitalized has fallen below 100 and the economy is reopening, the restriction no longer seems “proportional”: “It is harder and harder to see the justification for maintaining a ban on gatherings as small as 11 persons.”

The government has said that it will consider raising the limit on gatherings this month.