Monitoring the implementation of the Right to Information Directive (2015)

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee has been monitoring the law and practice related to the rights of defendants for years and has been participating in numerous national and international projects related to the issue. In addition, in 2015 the Hungarian Helsinki Committee joined the JUSTICIA European Rights Network, which is a non-profit trans-European network with 19 prominent member organizations based in 17 EU Member States, focusing on procedural rights of defendants and victim’s rights throughout Europe.

As part of the network, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee engaged in 2015 in an international research project with the coordination of the Lithuanian Human Rights Monitoring Institute, aiming to assess whether the Member States have effectively transposed and implemented the Right to Information Directive in law and practice. The project “EU Directives in Practice: Monitoring and Reporting on the Implementation of the EU Directive on the Right to Information in Criminal Proceedings” covers seven EU countries and was supported by the Criminal Justice Programme of the European Commission and the Open Society Foundations.

In the framework of the research, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee analysed the respective Hungarian legal rules, administered a survey among defence attorneys, and conducted interviews with police officers and defence attorneys in order to assess the level of implementation of Directive 2012/13/EU in Hungary.

The country report on Hungary, produced in the framework of the research project, is available here in Hungarian.

Co-funded by the Criminal Justice Programme of the European Commission