Helsinki File: Right to family life

In March 2025, the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) conducted an ad hoc visit to Hungary. To highlight pressing issues regarding conditions in Hungarian prisons, the HHC Justice Programme prepared a submission for the visit.

The Strasbourg Court has ruled in favour of a former prisoner in a case against Hungary over its arbitrary refusal to allow him to attend the funerals of his mother and brother. This was despite the fact that he had almost no time left to serve on his sentence and that his behaviour had been exemplary. The applicant was represented by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee.

Everyone’s right to family life and family unity regardless of nationality, ethnicity, or any other status has long been recognised in international human rights law, international refugee law and EU law. When people flee their … Read more

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee was granted leave to submit a third-party intervention in the case of R.M. and Others v. Poland. The case concerns a Russian family with small children who were detained in Poland … Read more

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee has published a short information leaflet on family reunification in seven languages with the support of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. The leaflet can be downloaded from the below links: Information … Read more

New report on the implementation of the right to family reunification for people in need of international protection in the European Union.

This short handbook aims at providing refugees and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection with necessary information in 5 languages.

In recent years, Somali refugees and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection who have been granted protection in Hungary have faced insurmountable difficulties when trying to be reunited with their family members in Hungary.