In the early morning hours of 13 May 2020 in the town of Gyula, located in the southeast corner of Hungary, the police raided the home of Mr János Csóka-Szűcs, a local NGO activist.
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In its information, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee provides an overview of rule of law developments in Hungary between May and July 2020, covering concerns pertaining to the justice system and institutional issues related to checks and balances.
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The European Commission’s Rule of Law Report has identified substantial problems severely threatening the rule of law in Hungary in all four areas examined by the report.
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In a state of emergency, state authorities have wider powers than usual, and they can even abuse them. In such times all of us have our own responsibilities: doctors to heal, the Police to keep the order up, citizens to comply with the rules. Us, human rights defenders as well: to ensure that during these exceptional times, authorities still only make decisions following fair procedures. Therefore we provide legal aid to the most vulnerable people, and also to those who take health risks in the interest of our society and are doing what their professional knowledge and their moral conscience tell them to do.
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When we turn to the European Court of Human Rights, generally we try to draw attention to those structural problems which are not or cannot be remedied by the Hungarian authorities and courts: dismissal of public officials without justification, inhuman circumstances of detention, or unreasonable deprivation of one’s personal freedom.
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We provide free legal assistance to asylum seekers, stateless persons and unaccompanied minors in Hungary. Reuniting separated families is one of our main objectives. Through our training and research activities, we foster a high-quality, effective and humane asylum procedure – both inside Hungary and in other parts of the world. We combat xenophobia.
We aim at decreasing the defenceless of people: we provide support to those in contact with the police and the penitentiary system, and we provide legal advice and representation to victims of ill-treatment by official persons or other severe abuses. In addition, we regularly monitor prisons and other places of detention in order to make closed institutions more transparent.
People are free in a state where the consequences of their actions are predictable and where clean and transparent rules apply not only to the individuals, but also to state authorities. Where the state power has no clear limits, there is no individual freedom either. It is important for us that the Hungarian democracy operates on the basis of the rule of law – that is why we step up in its defence.
Everybody should be treated equally; however, we still experience discrimination at many areas of life. For example, members of minorities can be victims of hate crime. We primarily provide legal aid for detainees and asylum seekers fighting against discrimination.