Category: Our reports and analyses

The Hungarian government terminated the state of danger as of 1 November 2022, and then re-declared as of the same day, referring to the war in Ukraine. This was necessary because the constitutional rules on the special legal order, including the state of danger, have changed as of 1 November. According to expert opinion, the amendment to the Fundamental Law and to related laws served one purpose: to provide the Government with exclusive and effectively unlimited power in any exceptional situation.

A new research paper published by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee brings attention to the worrying practices of non-implementation of judgments in the field of asylum and migration in Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia and the implications on the rule of law.

Capturing independent courts – both the Constitutional Court and the ordinary court system – has been in progress for over ten years and has nearly come to full completion in Hungary.  One weak, but independent … 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.

The ongoing negotiations between the Government of Hungary and the European Commission regarding the conditions for Hungary’s access to the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility as well as the conditionality procedure under the Regulation to … Read more

As a result of the negotiations between the European Commission and the Hungarian Government following the triggering of the Conditionality Mechanism, 17 specific and one general commitment have been included in the Commission’s proposal for … 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 ratio of people in prisons within the population of Hungary is rather high in comparison to European countries.

The ongoing negotiations between the Government of Hungary and the European Commission regarding the conditions for Hungary’s access to the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility as well as the Conditionality Regulation, triggered by the European … Read more

The legislative framework and the practice of secondments, entailing the transfer of judges from one court to another, endangers the independence of Hungarian judges. Moreover, it may result in the violation of the right of parties to lawsuits to a fair hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law.

Unlawful Judicial Appointments at the Kúria   András Zs Varga, the President of the Kúria, Hungary’s supreme court, unlawfully appointed several judges to the bench in 2021. The National Judicial Council, the self-governing body of … Read more

Hungary held its general elections and a national referendum on 3 April 2022. The Parliament adopted an omnibus bill after the elections based on a package of proposals of the National Election Office. Some of … Read more

Joint Legal Note by the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) and the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) aims at providing guidance as to the standards under EU and international law relating to examination of … Read more

Non-execution of domestic court judgments by state authorities in freedom of information cases is a severe problem in Hungary. This violates the European Convention on Human Rights. In our submission with the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union to the Council of Europe, we show the systemic causes of non-compliance with judgments, and propose recommendations to ensure access to public interest data.

The HHC’s submission to the Committee of Ministers shows that the Hungarian Government has been failing to execute judgments of the European Court of Human Rights that concluded that the rules on imposing whole life imprisonment in Hungary violate the prohibition of inhuman or degrading punishment.

On behalf of the Hungarian Government, Deputy Prime Minister Semjén submitted two bills to Parliament on 19 July 2022, in the afternoon of the last day of Parliament before it went into summer recess. Both … Read more

The European Commission’s 2022 Rule of Law Report, released on 13 July 2022, repeated the stark findings of previous years and found no progress as regards judicial independence in Hungary. Two out of the Commission’s … Read more

On 8 June 2022, the governing majority in the Hungarian Parliament adopted the Fourth Authorization Act, which completes the Hungarian Government’s efforts to keep its excessive regulatory powers acquired first with a view to the … Read more

Our briefing paper provides an overview of the emergency regimes introduced in Hungary due to the COVID-19 pandemic since March 2020 until the present day and explains the consequences in terms of the executive’s powers.

On 23 May 2022, the Council will hold its fourth hearing in the procedure initiated under Article 7(1) TEU in relation to Hungary in 2018, with the aim to determine whether there is a clear … Read more