Law enforcement and criminal justice

Hungarian absurdity: Homeless people in handcuffs vs. human rights In Hungary, the practices established by the Police and the courts against homeless people seem to be humiliating and strongly discriminative. Since the criminalization of homelessness, which is and of itself is cruel, an affront to human dignity and seriously violating international human rights standards, procedural issues have been emerged.

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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 out a research on how and to which extant the restraining measures, especially the use of handcuffs, can violate the presumption of innocence.

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The ProCam project funded by the European Commission’s Justice Programme is a multijurisdictional project on audiovisual recording of police interrogations of suspects, including minors and vulnerable persons. The overall objective of this multi-jurisdictional research is to assess whether audiovisual recording constitutes a simple and practical measure that can help create more transparency and accountability in pre-trial proceedings.

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The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is a UN Convention, adopted in 1965 and is in force in Hungary since 1969. The Convention is monitored by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), a body of 18 human rights experts.

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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 the criminal procedure Europe-wide.

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Call for Applications for a Consultant to Research Trial Waiver Systems in Hungary Fair Trials, in support of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, is seeking a consultant to conduct research into the use of trial waiver mechanisms in Hungarian criminal procedure.

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The Punitive State: if you can’t solve it, ban it!

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The Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) filed a complaint with the Hungarian Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) against the new criminal provision threatening with imprisonment those assisting asylum seekers. As for the so-called ‘special tax on immigration’ this law can only be challenged in Strasbourg, as the ruling majority deprived the Constitutional Court of its right to review tax laws years ago.

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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 Committee.

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Against unprecedented pressure and the further dismantling of the rule of law in Hungary we remained a strong human rights watchdog in 2017. We continued to stand up for preserving democratic values, a vivid and independent civil society, the right to asylum and freedom from torture and inhuman treatment. Click here to learn more about what we achieved through strategic litigation, advocacy and capacity-building in 2017.

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