Anybody may become defenceless in the face of the state’s power.
Promoting access to case materials of defendants and their defense counsels in criminal proceedings has been a long-standing priority of the HHC, and is related to activities involving a series of successful applications submitted to … Read more
“If arrested, you cannot appeal your detention if you do not understand how you should do it, or that you’re even entitled to it. Knowing your rights during your detention is fundamental to a fair … Read more
Increasing the Capacity of Law Enforcement Authorities to Tackle Racist Crime, Hate Crime and Homophobic Crime through Experiential Learning
Ill-treatment has been prohibited by international and regional instruments and conventions for many decades. Yet torture and other forms of inhuman or degrading treatment at the hands of state officials, and particularly those engaged in … Read more
The HHC was a partner of Fair Trials International in the “Practitioner Training on Roadmap Directives” project, partially funded by the European Union. The overall objective of this project was to provide defence lawyers from … Read more
The HHC has been an implementing partner organization of Fair Trials in the project titled “The Practice of Pre-Trial Detention: Monitoring Alternatives and Judicial Decision-Making”, with funding from the European Commission, which aimed to provide a unique evidence-base about … Read more
Helsinki Committees conduct research and monitor detention facilities for children in Central and Eastern Europe. The main aim of the project is to examine lawfulness of detention and its conditions in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania and Hungary.
The Hungarian system of penitentiary disciplinary procedures is dysfunctional due to systemic and procedural reasons, as suggested by the HHC’s monitoring and project experiences and information provided by lawyers as well as penitentiary staff. The … Read more
The excessive and lengthy use of pre-trial detention continues to be a serious problem throughout the Central Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (CEE-FSU) region, and the practice of pre-trial detention in most countries … Read more
Projects could be submitted to the Sozialmarie which attempt to deal with a social problem from a new point of view applying creative, original methods. The program of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee in which we organized local “civil-police consultations” won a 1000 euro prize.
The system of prison complaints is dysfunctional due to systemic and procedural reasons and does not meet international standards throughout the CEE-FSU region.As previous discussions and presentations suggest, in most of these countries the prison … Read more
Discrimination against the Roma is widespread in all fields of life in Hungary. Research shows that police officers are also highly biased against Roma – but no research has been carried out yet with regard … Read more
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee’s STEPSS (Strategies for Effective Police Stop and Search) project was aimed at assessing the practice of ID checks and monitor ethnic profiling while improving the relations of the police and the Roma … Read more
This project, carried out in 2009, was aimed at decreasing racism among police officers and contributing to the development of an organizational culture of tolerance within the Hungarian police force. In order to achieve this … Read more
In June 2008 the HHC sent a public interest information request to all Budapest-based police stations to find out in how many cases the police had appointed ex officio defense counsels in mandatory defense cases … Read more
Lifelong imprisonment without the possibility of parole (actual life sentence) was introduced into Hungarian criminal law in 1998. Hungary and the UK are the only EU Member States whose legal system makes it possible to impose a so-called “actual life sentence” on perpetrators of serious crimes.
Partly as a result of the HHC’s advocacy efforts, a new body for examining complaints against the police, the Independent Police Complaints Board (IPCB) was established by a June 2007 amendment of the Police Act. … Read more
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee has been advocating for the ratification and the proper implementation of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture. Below the most important steps and developments of the project can be consulted.
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee takes part in a comparative research project ‘Effective Defence Rights in the European Union and Access to Justice: Investigating and Promoting Best Practices’ project. The project is the initiative of four … Read more
The Hungarian system of complaints against unlawful police action has been criticised being dysfunctional due to systemic and procedural reasons. The most important flaw was that the police rather than an independent body decided all … Read more