Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 1991, published 78th ILC session (1991)

Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention, 1952 (No. 102) - Denmark (Ratification: 1955)

1. Part VI (Employment injury benefit), Article 38, in conjunction with Article 69(e) and (f) of the Convention. In its previous comments, the Committee raised the question of the conformity with the above provisions of the Convention, of section 14, subsection 1, of the Industrial Injury Insurance Act of 1978, under which benefits for loss of earning capacity or for permanent disability may be reduced or withheld if the person concerned has caused the employment injury or substantially contributed to it by an act or omission involving a manifest risk of injury, whereas the above provisions of the Convention authorise the suspension of these benefits only where the contingency has been caused by a crime or an offence, or by wilful misconduct of the person concerned.

The Government indicates in its report that, during the period covered, the National Social Security Office has only once made use of the possibility of reducing benefits under the above-mentioned provision of Act No. 79 of 1978. It adds that a Bill to replace the Industrial Injuries Insurance Act has been prepared by the committee set up by the Ministry of Social Affairs, and that this Bill brings the national legislation into conformity with the relevant provisions of the Convention and of the European Code of Social Security. The Committee notes this information with interest. It also notes with interest the statement made by the Danish expert at the 36th Session of the Social Security Steering Committee (Lisbon, 23-26 October 1990) in the context of the supervision procedure of the European Code of Social Security, to the effect that a proposal to bring the legislation on employment injury insurance into full conformity with Article 68 of the Code had been submitted to Parliament.

The Committee therefore hopes that it will be possible for section 14, subsection 1, of Act No. 79 of 1978 to be brought formally into conformity with the Convention in the near future. It also hopes that any new legislation adopted on compensation for employment injury will take full account of all the provisions of Part VI of the Convention and the corresponding provisions of Parts XI to XIII.

2. The Committee again asks the Government to provide, if possible in English or French, the provisions mentioned by the Government in its sixteenth report on the application of the European Code of Social Security concerning (a) the obligation for unemployed persons to be at the disposal of the employment services, (b) "deliberate" unemployment.