2013 at the Ombudsman institution We were, however, able to help in another case (2013-18), where a so-called ‘visa penalty period’ was imposed on an only 11-month-old child, meaning that the child was banned from getting a visa to Denmark for a specific period of time. The child’s mother came from Kosovo and had given birth during a visa stay in Denmark, but the visa had expired by the time she left Denmark. She was therefore given a visa penalty period, but so was the child, which meant, among other things, that for the next five years, the child was precluded from visiting his father in Denmark. This was an error on the part of the authorities, and as a result of the case, the authorities will in future explicitly state that a visa penalty period imposed on parents does not apply to underage children. This case shows that children have independent rights, also when it comes to visas. Social sector cases are another category of cases involving people who live under difficult conditions. This therefore constitutes a very large case group for the Ombudsman institution, and luckily we are able to help in a number of cases. In one of those cases, an elderly upper secondary school teacher had been refused early retirement benefit because the authorities did not find that he fulfilled the requirement of being available for work (2013-11). However, it turned out that the teacher’s circumstances had not been adequately investigated, and we recommended that the case be reopened. Our recommendation was followed, and the authorities recognised the teacher’s right to early retirement benefit. On a more general level, the 2012 Annual Report told of the issues in relation to municipalities’ combating of social benefit fraud. There is no doubt that the municipalities experience problems in effectively targeting fraud and unwarranted payments while at the same time complying with fundamental legal principles. This was also a focus area for us in 2013. Among others, we investigated a much-discussed case about a woman who was ordered to repay social benefits because, according to the authorities, she was not ‘effectively single’ and had therefore ‘in bad faith’ received too much in benefit payments (2013-4). The decision was based, among other things, on an anonymous tip-off, and we em­ phasised that such a tip-off may well give the authorities grounds for starting an investigation but it cannot in itself form part of the evidence in a case. The case also gave us the opportunity to sum up some fundamental principles which the authorities must pay special attention to, such as objective case elucidation, selfincrimination and the duty to provide guidance. For that matter, the municipalities do seem to know that this issue causes problems, and throughout 2013, we had the opportunity to discuss the problems with a number of municipalities. 15