Category: Our reports and analyses

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee’s replies to requests to provide information by the Hungarian national focal point for the FRANET research network of the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA)

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.

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee participated at the 2024 OSCE Human Dimension Conference and took the floor and provided written submissions on the situation of human rights defenders and civic space, on the rights of asylum-seekers … Read more

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee coordinated a coalition of three civil society organisations (CSOs) working in Hungary to contribute to General Comment 27 of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC), which focuses on children’s rights to access to justice and effective remedies. In its draft General Comment, the CRC aims to clarify the terms, approaches and actions that States should take to implement the right of all children to access to justice and effective remedies when their rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child fail to be respected.

Hungary has been failing to implement judgments of the European Court of Human Rights that established rights violations with regard to applicants sentenced to whole life imprisonment and life imprisonment with the possibility of a parole. In its recent submission, the HHC demonstrates once again how the Hungarian authorities had not only failed to carry out the necessary legal changes, but that individual measures that would be required to bring the violations to an end with regard to the applicants are prevented as well.

The HHC submitted a communication to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe regarding the execution of the judgments in the X.Y. v. Hungary group of cases on pre-trial detention. The communication argues that the group of judgments cannot be considered implemented, and deficiencies regarding pre-trial measures in the Hungarian criminal justice system remain.

The Criminal Justice Programme of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) drafted a comprehensive response to the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency’s (FRA) FRANET research network’s Hungarian focal point touching upon 18 topics related to Criminal Detention in the European Union: Conditions and Monitoring.

Nine years after the European Court of Human Rights condemned Hungary for violating the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment due to its prison conditions, detainees continue to face substandard living conditions that fall short … Read more

Hungary has failed to implement judgments of the European Court of Human Rights that established large-scale rights violations concerning detention conditions. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee has expressed concern several times regarding the recent surge in the number of persons detained in Hungarian penitentiaries, which led to overcrowding and substandard detention conditions. Additionally, evidence is provided by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) that there is still a lack of effective remedy for prisoners against decisions taken in the prison system, along with the compensation system suffering from several shortcomings already clearly identified by the Committee of Ministers.

HHC attended the OSCE Warsaw Human Dimension Conference and submitted statements on shrinking civic space, violations of the rights of migrants and asylum-seekers, freedom of assembly, and the rule of law.

In 2015, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) concluded in its pilot judgment delivered in the case of Gazsó v. Hungary that violations of the right to a hearing within a reasonable time in … Read more

Hungary has been failing to implement judgments of the European Court of Human Rights that established rights violations with regard to applicants sentenced to whole life imprisonment and life imprisonment with the possibility of a parole. In its recent submission, the HHC demonstrates how the Hungarian authorities had not only failed to carry out the necessary legal changes, but that individual measures that would be required to bring the violations to an end with regard to the applicants are prevented as well.

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

Hungarian prisons are overcrowded again, with the highest prison population in 33 years. The steady increase is worrying: on 31 December 2022, there were more than 19 thousand incarcerated people in Hungary, leaving the prison … Read more

The reduction of the overcrowding of Hungarian prisons is a legitimate aim, however it is yet to be seen how the necessary guarantees, such as access to quality legal aid, and interpretation, and the assessment of non-refoulement are secured for foreign detainees.

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

For the purpose of promoting the Council conclusions on alternative measures to detention: the use of non-custodial sanctions and measures in the field of criminal justice (2019/C 422/06) the Hungarian Helsinki Committee takes part in … Read more

Upon the call of the Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee submitted an input for the Special Rapporteur’s thematic report “The duty to investigate … Read more

The HHC submitted a communication to the Committee of Ministers on the execution of a 2015 pilot judgment on inadequate detention conditions in Hungarian prisons and the remaining issues of the related compensation system. The … Read more

The HHC found that Hungary has failed to achieve any tangible progress with regard to preventing, investigating and sanctioning ill-treatment by the police since last year, and so continues failing to execute the respective judgments of the European Court of Human Rights.