Five years ago, on World Refugee Day, the Hungarian Parliament passed the infamous “Stop Soros” law, criminalizing assistance provided for asylum seekers and stigmatizing independent NGOs. Taking stock of the past five years, our new paper puts the attacks faced by Hungarian NGOs in the context of an illiberal transition.
Budapest, 20 June 2023 – On the fifth anniversary of Hungary’s anti-NGO laws, Hungarian civil society organisations call on the government to fully implement court judgments that uphold their rights.
The asylum system in Hungary has practically been suspended since May 2020. Neither the legal framework nor its practical implementation offers effective access to the asylum system, thereby emptying out the right to seek asylum.
The Hungarian government’s current attempt to reduce prison overcrowding is absurd. After boasting about its increasingly strict penal policy and communicating about the fight against migration, it has released hundreds of foreign human smugglers from prison, which is damaging and dangerous. We point out the main issues.
On 30 May, there will be yet another hearing in the General Affairs Council in relation to Hungary in the framework of the procedure under Article 7(1) TEU that is aimed at determining whether there … Read more
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.
A 14-year-old asylum-seeking child was assaulted by field guards in Ásotthalom and thrown back to Serbia by Hungarian police. A 17-year-old asylum seeker was arbitrarily detained for three months. A 28-year-old torture victim asylum seeker was detained despite severe health problems. All three of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee’s clients appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, and all won. The Hungarian state violated their human rights and is obliged to pay just reparation.
The Justice Programme of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee prepared the following submission for the upcoming periodic visit of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) Our submission focuses … Read more
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.
This leaflet has useful information for you if you don’t have Ukrainian nationality, but you lived in Ukraine and you had to leave Ukraine because of the war.
We have gathered recurring questions that refugees from Ukraine have asked our staff and that we have not covered in our information leaflet. The document can be downloaded and distributed in English, Ukrainian and Russian.
Last updated: 17 July 2024 This document provides you with important information if you are a Ukrainian citizen, you are a Ukrainian citizen’s family member, you have been recognised in Ukraine as a refugee or … Read more
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
On 23 March, the court annulled the earlier decision to withdraw Ms Gáborné Nagy’s international protection and ordered the authorities to start a new procedure. The judgement ruled that if the National Directorate-General for Aliens Policing (OIF) still wants to deprive her of her refugee status, it has to find properly founded, reasoned objections, and make them available to the person concerned so that she can express her views.
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee is looking for lawyers to carry out national research for an EU-wide mapping study on the topic of access to classified data in national security immigration/asylum cases in Denmark, Finland and … 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.