Category: Our reports and analyses

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

On 18 June 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union declared that Act LXXVI of 2017 on the Transparency of Organisations Supported from Abroad (“LexNGO 2017”), which stigmatised certain civil society organisations (CSOs) … Read more

As part of the Protecting Rights at Borders initiative funded by the European Programme for Integration and Migration (EPIM), the third quarterly report on unlawful push-backs was published. Since our previous report the world has changed, … Read more

As part of an international comparative research funded by the European Union, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee conducted a study on the Hungarian legal framework and the practical application of alternative sanctions (penalties and measures), which … Read more

Two new Bills proposed by the Minister of Justice this week show that the Hungarian Government would use the war in Ukraine as a pretext to keep its excessive regulatory powers, while amending the constitution the 10th time.

The Asylum Information Database (AIDA) contains information on asylum procedures, reception conditions, detention and international protection based on data from 23 countries, including Hungary. The report on Hungary for 2021 issued by the Hungarian Helsinki … Read more

The HHC has long been reporting on issues related to unnecessary restrictions of detainees’ contact with the outside world to the CPT. For the past years, there has been a systemic overuse of COVID-lockdown measures … Read more

We compiled a factsheet on issues hindering good family contact of detainees in Hungary. Why is detainees’ contact with the outside world important? Contact with family members promotes the reintegration of prisoners and the prevention … Read more