Anybody may become defenceless in the face of the state’s power.
The transnational project coordinated by the Fair Trials aims at secondary analysis of existing research papers, interviews of experts and organizing roundtable discussions in order to reveal discrimination against Roma people in the criminal justice … Read more
The Punitive State: if you can’t solve it, ban it!
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee launched its new project with three other civil-society organizations: Fair Trials Europe from Belgium, APADOR-CH from Romania and Antigone from Italy in order to enhance the accessibility of the communication in … Read more
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee was a partner in the international project “Strengthening procedural rights in criminal proceedings: effective implementation of the right to a lawyer/legal aid under the Stockholm Programme”, coordinated by the Bulgarian Helsinki … Read more
Ten months after the scandal broke concerning the Topház social care institution the Hungarian Data Protection Authority stated: the fact that the civil organization uncovering the horrible conditions took photos and published them anonymised in … Read more
The transnational project coordinated by the Vienna based Ludwig Boltzmann Institute aimed to facilitate experience exchange among the National Human Rights Institutions (which is the ombudsman in Hungary) operating in the European Union. In the … Read more
Ahead of the hearing before the ECtHR on 20 December in the Beuze v. Belgium case, NGO coalition expresses its hope that the European Court of Human Rights will rule in a way which guarantees that individuals cannot be convicted if were unlawfully denied early access to a lawyer in criminal proceedings.
Authorities terminated cooperation agreements with the Hungarian Helsinki Committee and denied access to police detention, prisons and immigration detention after two decades of cooperation and 2000+ visits. The HHC can no longer monitor human rights … Read more
Within the framework of our EU project called “Suspects in restrains – the importance of appearance: how suspects and accused persons are presented in the courtroom, in public and in the media (SIR)”, we carried … Read more
The ProCam project funded by the European Commission’s Justice Programme is an international project on audiovisual recording of police interrogations of suspects, including minors and vulnerable persons. The overall objective of this multi-jurisdictional research is … Read more
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
In its March 2015 pilot judgment issued in the Varga and Others v. Hungary case (in which three of the applicants were represented by the HHC), the European Court of Human Rights concluded that the overcrowding of penitentiaries in Hungary constitutes a structural problem, and Hungary should produce a plan to reduce overcrowding.
Know Your Rights! Short movie on the rights of suspects in Hungary What happens to me if I am suspected with committing a criminal offence in Hungary? May I ask the police officer … Read more
Currently, it is difficult for the perpetrator and the victim in petty offence procedures to conclude a settlement, even though settling would often be better for both of them. The HHC turned to the Ombudsperson regarding the issue, who agreed with the HHC and asked the Ministry of Interior to amend the rules.
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 Hungarian authorities’ refusal to provide the HHC with information relating to ex officio defence counsels was in breach of the right of access to information.
The Hungarian authorities’ refusal to provide the HHC with information relating to ex officio defence counsels was in breach of the right of access to information
Do defendants with no legal background understand their rights in criminal procedure? Do they know that they have the right to remain silent? Are they aware of what remaining in silence means in practice? In … Read more
The primary objective of the project, carried out in nine countries of the European Union was to measure the practical operation of suspects’ rights at the investigative stage – the right to interpretation and translation, … Read more