On 3 May 2023, the Hungarian Parliament adopted Act X of 2023 on the Amendment of Certain Laws on Justice related to the Hungarian Recovery and Resilience Plan. The Hungarian government now claims to have met all four of the so-called super milestones aimed at restoring the independence of the judiciary set by the Council of the European Union as a precondition for accessing frozen EU funds under Hungary’s Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF).
On 12 December 2022, the European Council adopted Hungary’s Recovery and Resilience Plan after the European Commission finally approved it. Compared to the original plan, the adopted version includes a new set of benchmarks on governance and public administration, totaling 38 measures with 111 milestones and targets. 27 of these milestones are ‘super milestones’; if not met, no payment under the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) will be allowed. Four of the 27 super milestones concern the Hungarian judiciary.
One benchmark requires the Hungarian government to remove all obstacles to the preliminary reference procedure set out in Article 267 TFEU. This is Super Milestone 215.
Today Amnesty International Hungary, the Eötvös Károly Institute and the Hungarian Helsinki Committee turned to the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, regarding concerns about the ongoing law-making process aimed at ensuring Hungary’s compliance with … Read more
As of the end of the first quarter of 2023, the Hungarian government is yet to comply with most of the conditions established by European Union institutions to access EU funds. According to Hungarian civil society organisations, the Government had not yet taken adequate steps in order to fully address the rule of law and human rights concerns raised by the EU, and so numerous issues related to the anti-corruption framework, judicial independence, law-making, the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers, academic freedom and the rights of LGBTQI+ persons remain unresolved. Swift measures are necessary in all of these areas to ensure that the country and its citizens are granted access to EU funds.
On 12 December 2022, the Council adopted Hungary’s Recovery and Resilience Plan based on the Commission’s positive evaluation. Compared to the original plan, a new set of measures were added on governance and public administration, … Read more
Journalists from the independent Hungarian news portal Telex were blocked from interviewing government officials arriving at a government meeting because the building of the Prime Minister’s office was fenced off by a police cordon. After an unsuccessful complaint to the police, the journalists secured a court victory today with the help of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee’s lawyer. In today’s ruling, the Metropolitan Regional Court in Budapest confirmed that the measure was unnecessary, disproportionate, and violated the journalists’ right to freedom of expression.
Severely deteriorating conditions in the public education system in Hungary have led teachers, students and parents to make increasingly louder demands for change. However, instead of listening to their fact-based concerns, the Hungarian government has … Read more
The Council of Europe has been waiting for Hungary to take steps to execute the Baka case that also concerns the freedom of expression of judges. The inactivity and the telling silence of the Hungarian government is becoming all the more embarrassing, especially because Hungary is expected to give account of important guarantees of the judicial system. During the latest supervision effected in March, the Committee of Ministers also took note of the fact that the President of the Kúria requested the annulment of the Code of Ethics of Judges before the Constitutional Court.
As a result of six years of continuous inertia to implement the European Court of Human Rights judgment in the Baka v. Hungary case, in which the Court concluded that the premature removal of the … Read more
The Hungarian government first acquired excessive emergency powers with a view to the pandemic in the spring of 2020: it declared a “state of danger” (veszélyhelyzet), a special legal order regime, while the governing majority … Read more
On 18 January, the Hungarian government published and submitted for public consultation a draft law on the judiciary. The amendments are essential to fulfil the so-called super milestones set by the EU, linked to the … Read more
The legal changes proposed by the Hungarian government about the country’s judicial system do not meet the requirements set out in the respective super milestones by EU institutions in relation to Hungary’s Recovery and Resilience … Read more
Safeguards against abuses when it comes to the restriction of the freedom of expression of Hungarian judges are still missing. This is also evidenced by new, intense smear campaigns launched in 2022 against critical judges, with government politicians joining the propaganda media. In their submission to the Council of Europe, Amnesty International Hungary and the Hungarian Helsinki Committee argue that this goes against the judgment delivered by the European Court of Human Rights over six years ago in the Baka v. Hungary case.
For the fourth year in a row, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee is contributing to the European Commission’s annual Rule of Law Report in coordination with other Hungarian human rights and anti-corruption CSOs. This year, Amnesty … Read more
Rule of law backsliding affects all policy areas and all areas of life, including the performance of law enforcement agencies and the criminal justice system. With a view to the stakeholder consultation regarding the European … Read more
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Reacting to the decision of the Council of the EU to suspend EU funds to Hungary for systemic rule of law breaches, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, K-Monitor and Transparency International Hungary call on the Hungarian government to ensure full compliance with rule of law standards to enable the entire Hungarian society to benefit from EU funds.
Three recent high-profile corruption cases clearly show that an independent judiciary is essential to fight corruption and eliminate risks for the EU budget, and arbitrary and uncontrolled court management powers are not only a theoretical … Read more
Tuesday, 13 December 2022,15:00-17:00 (CET) – online on Zoom In November 2022, the European Commission launched a public consultation for the 2023 edition of the Rule of Law Report. The Report monitors positive and negative … Read more
Promises and half-hearted solutions have failed to convince the European Commission, and so Hungary has still no access to vital EU funds. According to the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, K-Monitor and Transparency International (TI) Hungary, the … Read more