The Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) utilised all human rights CSO tools (research, advocacy, empowerment, strategic litigation, public- and professional awareness raising) to eliminate mandatory glass partitioning between inmates and their family members in Hungarian prisons during visits for seven years. The seven-year-long status quo is currently changing.
Since 2017, the Hungarian National Penitentiary Administration ordered prisons to conduct the most common prison visits in groups where several detainees and their visitors are separated by a plastic partition, a so-called plexiglass wall, under control, regardless of their security classification, without an individual risk assessment. Any physical contact between detainees and their visitors is strictly prohibited. In October 2023, the European Court of Human Rights found that this general practice violates the right to respect for private and family life – Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The state must not abandon victims of police ill-treatment, even if they are collectively expelled foreigners. Nor can it grant impunity to abusers in uniform, a Strasbourg Court judgment confirmed yesterday. Hungarian police officers had … Read more
In 2013, Dávid Vig, a Hungarian citizen, was subject to a police ID check and a search of his outer clothing during a cultural festival held at a community centre in Budapest. Nothing incriminating was … Read more
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee released its documentary film By the Power of the Force on its YouTube channel. The subject of the film is the largely unpunished mass police violence of 2006 and its aftermath. The film by civil rights activists shows that the domestic judiciary still fails to prevent, detect and punish police violence to this day.
A special criminal trial has begun in the Pest Central District Court. The accused man, now 35 years old, was sexually molested by his priest several times since the age of 13. This counts as a crime, and amounts to sexual violence against a child. Yet the Catholic priest remained unpunished under secular criminal law. Meanwhile, Attila Pető, the former victim, is now being threatened by criminal sanction
On 15 April 2021, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in a final judgment that the Hungarian State violated Zsombor Csúcs’ human rights when the Prosecutor’s Office did not investigate his abuse by the … Read more
Zsolt Csonka was taken to Sellye police station for questioning as witness in relation to timber theft in February 2013. According to the police record, he waived his right to counsel at the beginning of … Read more
Ten months after the scandal broke concerning the Topház social care institution the Hungarian Data Protection Authority stated: the fact that the civil organization uncovering the horrible conditions took photos and published them anonymised in … Read more
The Hungarian authorities’ refusal to provide the HHC with information relating to ex officio defence counsels was in breach of the right of access to information.
The Hungarian authorities’ refusal to provide the HHC with information relating to ex officio defence counsels was in breach of the right of access to information
In its judgment of 5 July 2016, the European Court of Human Rights established that the pre-trial detention of the HHC’s client, Mr. Bandur, violated the European Convention on Human Rights. In 2012 the HHC … Read more
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 … Read more
The HHC’s client, a young man, was placed in pre-trial detention in November 2007. In March 2008, he was transferred to the Bács-Kiskun County Penitentiary Institution for five days, where he was placed in a … Read more
In its judgment issued today, the European Court of Human Rights set out that Hungary should produce within six months a plan for reducing overcrowding in its penitentiaries. The judgment concluded that the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment was violated with regard to the applicants detained in overcrowded cells, three of them being the clients of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee.
On 17 September, a juvenile client of the HHC was set free after 13 months of pre-trial detention imposed for the alleged robbery of a T-shirt. The HHC turned to Strasbourg in the case earlier on.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled again in a Hungarian pre-trial detention case on 23 April 2013 that Hungary had violated Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The applicant was represented by the HHC.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled in a Hungarian pre-trial detention case on 16 April 2013 that Hungary had violated Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The applicant was represented by the HHC.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled in a Hungarian pre-trial detention case on 19 March 2013 that Hungary violated Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The applicant was represented by the HHC.
The HHC’s attorney represented applicants Mr. Réti and Mrs. Fizli before the European Court of Human Rights in relation to their ill-treatment by the police (Application no. 31373/11). The applicants were ill-treated by the police … Read more