Category: Our reports and analyses

Mapping paper on the public consultation on draft laws, parliamentary law-making, and the perpetuated states of exception

This report presents key insights from seven refugee-assisting organisations in Europe, including the Hungarian Helsinki Committee. As part of the Caring to Include project, it identifies challenges, good practices, and clear priorities for improving staff mental well-being and embedding trauma-informed approaches.

Civil society organisations warn that the functioning of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights, the country’s national human rights institution, continues to fall short of international standards, failing to protect human rights and vulnerable communities. They remind that the new Commissioner, who will have to be nominated shortly, should be selected in a transparent and merit-based procedure.

The Asylum Information Database (AIDA) contains information on asylum procedures, reception conditions, detention and international protection based on data from 24 countries, including Hungary. The report on Hungary for 2024 issued by the Hungarian Helsinki … Read more

A new proposal for a law would allow the Hungarian government to blacklist a broad range of for-profit and non-profit entities, severely limiting their ability to operate. Hungarian civil society organisations explain the details and how the law would silence watchdogs and shield government abuse.

In March 2025, the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) conducted an ad hoc visit to Hungary. To highlight pressing issues regarding conditions in Hungarian prisons, the HHC Justice Programme prepared a submission for the visit.

The Hungarian government is disregarding an interim resolution by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which exhorted the government to align legislation on life sentences with the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights.

The European Union’s conditionality framework plays a crucial role in safeguarding the rule of law, fundamental rights, and financial integrity within Member States. The 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and the Recovery and Resilience Facility … Read more

Recent legislative proposals threaten with the “suspension” of Hungarian citizenship, violate freedom of assembly, and effectively ban Pride. These changes represent a significant escalation in the Government’s efforts to suppress dissent and weaken human rights protection, and elevate exclusion and the threatening of dissenters to a constitutional level.

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee has published a handbook on the involvement of young people and teachers in human rights work.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association and the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression are working on reports on elections for the Human Rights Council in June … Read more

How the Ombudsperson’s weak independence and concentrated mandates weaken fundamental rights protection – Human rights defenders assess the performance of Hungary’s national human rights institution

Hungary continues to deny equal voting rights to members of national minorities, despite the European Court of Human Rights’ final ruling in the Bakirdzi and E.C. v. Hungary case in April 2023.

The European Parliament’s LIBE Committee invited the HHC to an exchange of views on Hungary’s backsliding on democracy and the rule of law, on 27 January 2025.

Watch the full exchange of views on the European Parliament’s website here. 

For the sixth 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 in the framework of the stakeholder consultation launched by the European Commission

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee is participating in a European research project examining the impact of digitalisation on procedural rights in criminal proceedings in Hungary. The project aims to promote the implementation of digitalisation in criminal proceedings in a way that ensures the consistent and complete enforcement of procedural rights, providing a uniform and adequate level of protection across the EU.

Despite rulings by the European Court of Human Rights and repeated calls by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe over the past 13 years, Hungary still fails to tackle prison overcrowding and inhumane detention conditions. As a result, large-scale rights violations persist.

More than eight years have passed since the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered its judgment in the Baka v. Hungary case. The implementation of the judgment would require Hungary to pass legislative measures … Read more

This Template presents the relevant EU law and the relevant Court of Justice of the European Union case law, as well as the pertinent provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and the applicable … Read more

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)