Right to attend funeral arbitrarily denied
The Strasbourg Court has ruled in favour of a former prisoner in a case against Hungary over its arbitrary refusal to allow him to attend the funerals of his mother and brother. This was despite the fact that he had almost no time left to serve on his sentence and that his behaviour had been exemplary. The applicant was represented by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee.
In Rigó v. Hungary, the applicant was serving a four-year sentence when he received devastating news from home: his mother had died. He contacted the prison commander and asked for permission to attend the funeral at his own expense. With just over two months of his sentence remaining, he was right to hope that this would not be a problem. The first-time offender had received 23 rewards in prison and not a single disciplinary sanction. But his application was rejected. Then came the tragic news of his brother’s death. With 47 days to go before his release, he again hoped to be granted leave, but was again denied. Both decisions were made after the funeral.
The former detainee appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) with the help of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC). The Court ruled that the Hungarian state had violated the complainant’s right to respect for his private and family life. Although the right to attend a funeral is not an absolute right of the prisoner that must be guaranteed by the prison in all circumstances, in this case there were no compelling reasons to justify the commander’s refusal. In the absence of any substantial reasons for refusal, the State cannot act arbitrarily with regard to a prisoner’s dignified final farewell to his loved one. The Court therefore awarded the applicant EUR 3,000 as just satisfaction. This marks the 111th Strasbourg case won by the HHC.
Although the right to a dignified final farewell for detainees is enshrined in Hungarian law, its implementation is alarmingly inadequate. In 2023, over 78% of requests for a final farewell were denied, often without meaningful individual assessment and relying solely on general grounds, undermining the fundamental right to private and family life as established by the ECtHR. This systemic failure is exacerbated by vague criteria for denial that allow for arbitrary decision-making (exceptional cases in which such requests can be denied remain unspecified), a limited definition of “close relatives” that excludes many, and exorbitant escort fees that detainees cannot afford in the vast majority of cases. Moreover, the request may not be considered until the day of the funeral, and the 30-day time limit for the right to visit a grave in the event of a missed funeral remains an unjustified restriction, as the deadline is time-barred and the detainee may be denied the right to a final farewell through no fault of their own.