Strasbourg court draws a line on Hungary’s mass pushbacks

In a landmark judgment, the European Court of Human Rights has mandated the Hungarian government to pay just satisfaction to three asylum seekers represented by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee after determining their expulsion from Hungary violated their fundamental rights. The judgment also obliges the government to take immediate measures to stop the collective expulsion of asylum seekers.

Since July 2016, Hungary has operated a system of automatic, indiscriminate pushbacks of refugees and other migrants. According to police data, foreigners have been forcibly sent to Serbia approximately 390,000 times since then. (This figure does not equate to the number of individuals attempted to enter the country, as many were apprehended multiple times.) Those pushed back include not only individuals who had entered Hungary irregularly from Serbia but also those who had never been to Serbia or who had entered Hungary lawfully.

Collective Expulsion, Individual Tragedies

Hungarian law uniquely mandates the compulsory return or transfer of foreigners to the territory of a neighbouring state. There is no exception even for those who seek asylum from the authorities, nor for children, the elderly, the sick, pregnant women, or victims of torture.

This unlawful practice, along with the legal framework enabling it, has already been condemned by numerous international court decisions, including a critical ruling from the  Court of Justice of the European Union in 2020.

The Strasbourg court has also repeatedly addressed these unlawful pushbacks ruling in favour of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee’s clients in seven individual cases since 2021. Last Tuesday, the eighth judgment condemning the state was delivered. This ruling outlines the circumstances of the violations in greater detail than ever before and, beyond the individual cases, delivers the strongest condemnation yet of the systemic and unlawful practice.

Deliberately Non-Functional

Moreover, this new judgment is the first to address and condemn another aspect of the government’s anti-immigrant and anti-refugee policy: the so-called embassy procedure. This cynical regulation requires asylum seekers to submit a “declaration of intent” and request asylum from Hungary exclusively through the embassies in Kyiv or Belgrade – even if they are already in Hungary or have never been to either of these countries.

This system was deliberately designed to be non-functional – and indeed, it does not work in practice. In any case, it could only serve as a supplementary pathway alongside the possibility of applying for asylum on the territory of the country or at the border. Since May 2020, only 21 applicants have been permitted to enter the country under this procedure.

As international scrutiny intensifies, Hungary’s approach to asylum seekers faces mounting pressure to align with fundamental human rights standards. This landmark ruling serves as a reminder of the ongoing struggle for justice for those seeking refuge and the responsibility of states to uphold their rights.

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Among the current applicants are a university student studying in Budapest, a child who relies on crutches due to an accident, and a young man who spent six days in a coma. Their individual stories were published on our blog in Hungarian.

“This judgment is significant not only because our clients have, after so many years, received some measure of redress for the harm they suffered, but also because the Strasbourg Court exposed the inhumanity of the entire system and rejected the Hungarian state’s post hoc justifications for the unjustifiable,” said Gábor Győző, the lawyer representing H.Q. and Z.A. from the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, in response to last week’s decision.

This marks the 118th Strasbourg case won by clients of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee since 2003.