Compensation for police ill-treatment

In 2011, a police officer halted the car of a man in the outskirts of the city of Tatabánya. After getting into an oral dispute (the HHC’s future client refused to hand over his ID card along with his driver’s licence, claiming that the latter already proved his identity), the police officer dragged him out of his car, pushed him onto the trunk of his vehicle, handcuffed him so tightly that caused him injuries and arrested him. In 2012, the criminal court found the police officer guilty of ill-treatment in official procedure and abuse of official capacity. The HHC undertook to represent the victim of the ill-treatment in the tort procedure aimed at getting compensation for the offence suffered. The first instance court awarded the HHC’s client a sum of HUF 200,000 as non-pecuniary damage but rejected to compel the police officer to express regrets over the incident. In a decision issued in March 2016, based on the appeal of the HHC, the second instance court raised the amount of non-pecuniary damage to HUF 500,000 and compelled the police officer to express his regrets over the incident in writing.