Victims of violence are experiencing wait times of up to two years for compensation: Legal experts loaned to the mink secretariat. Victims of violence must accept that it can take up to two years before they receive compensation, as the processing time in the Compensation Board has been drawn out. Further pressure has been placed on the board, after two of their experienced legal experts were loaned to the Mink Secretariat for one and a half years. This is stated in a response from Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgaard (S) to the Parliament.
To reduce the backlog of compensation claims from mink farmers, the government has offered Jutland public employees a bonus of 5000 kroner per month if they work in the Mink Secretariat for at least one and a half years. Karina Lorentzen, legal spokesperson for the Socialist People’s Party, expresses concern about the consequences of this arrangement:
“It is unfortunate that more money is offered to those working with mink compensations, when it negatively affects the processing of claims from victims of violence. It impacts people who have experienced trauma and violence,” she says.
The Danish Agency for Civil Affairs, under which the Compensation Board falls, has stated that the loaned employees will not be replaced. However, more legal experts will be added in 2024 compared to 2023, but still, the number will be two fewer than it could have been without the loans. The Secretariat is expected to have a staff of 33 full-time employees in 2024.
The Compensation Board has stated on their website that the waiting time for processing compensation applications can extend up to two years. This is due to an overwhelming number of cases that the board does not have sufficient resources to handle effectively. Both the Compensation Board and the Mink Secretariat are located in Viborg, and mink farmers have also experienced significant waiting times for their compensations.
Karina Lorentzen acknowledges these challenges, but believes that there should have been a more thorough consideration of the consequences of offering the extra 5000 kroner to certain employees. Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgaard has acknowledged the current challenges in a written response, but does not directly comment on the loan of the two legal experts. He emphasizes that the government has allocated 9.5 million kroner to the Compensation Board from 2023 to 2025 to reduce processing times.
Additionally, he signals new initiatives from the government to find more fundamental solutions that can bring waiting times down to a reasonable level:
“The previous measures have not been sufficient, and we must now look at more sustainable solutions that can significantly reduce processing times,” Hummelgaard states.