A/HRC/44/42/Add.4
is a signing party – adopted in the framework of the UN, the Council of Europe, the OSCE,
and the obligations arising from Hungary’s EU membership. It makes recommendations to
the Government and the other central administration bodies involved in legislation and
application of the law to provide regulations that allow for a wider representation of human
rights and reviews the implementation of these regulations.
The participation in the working group and the roundtable is based on an invitation by the
president of the working group, and the organisation is free to decide whether to accept it or
not. 2
The Working Group operates the Human Rights Roundtable, which currently operates with
72 NGO members and further 40 organisations take part in the activities of the thematic
working groups with the right of consultation. The Roundtable holds its meetings in 11
thematic working groups.
The chair of the Thematic Working Group Responsible for Refugees and Migration is the
State Secretary for Administration of the Ministry of Interior. The Thematic Working Group
has 11 NGO members, and further 5 NGOs take part in its activities with consultative status.
The Thematic Working Group holds two meetings annually.
It is responsible for
(a)
monitoring the migration trends of Hungary,
(b)
disclosing and identifying any dysfunction that impedes the enforcement of human
rights,
(c)
making proposals for the more effective application of protection of human rights,
(d)
holding consultations with civil organisations and professional bodies representing
the interests of refugees and migrants.
It should be underlined that the Human Rights Working Group and the thematic working
groups not only hold personal meetings, but continue their work in writing as well.
Comments specifically on the conclusions of the report
The conclusions of the report also refers to the independence of the judiciary, although
judicial independence is not affected by the subject matter of the report.
The legal rules mentioned in the report do not raise concerns about the independence of the
Hungarian judiciary. Furthermore, the Constitution, the Act on the status and remuneration
of judges and the Act on the organization and administration of courts provide necessary
guarantees both for the independence of individual judges and for the judicial system itself.
It has to be highlighted that related to the use of the newly introduced inadmissibility ground
- which rendered all applications for applicants entering from Serbia inadmissible - the
administrative judges dealing with asylum cases frequently referred the case back to the
asylum authority for an in-merit assessment.
As concerns point 70 we have the following comment:
The Criminal Code provides for several criminal offences to fight against hate crimes. These
include public denial of the crimes committed by the National Socialist and Communist
regimes (section 333), use of symbols of despotism (section 335), incitement against a
community (section 332) and violence against a member of a community (section 216).
The targeted persons and groups of the criminal offences of incitement against a community
and violence against a member of a community includes namely “other groups of the
society”. Every group of the population cannot be listed exhaustively since there can be
numerous grounds for bias motivation due to the diversity of the looks, circumstances and
beliefs of human beings. This wording makes it possible to include any kind of bias
motivation as ground for incitement or violence against persons belonging to a community
or a certain group of the population and their members. This means that, taking into
2
8
Article 11 and 24 of Government Decree 1039/2012. (II. 22.) on the Human Rights Working Group.
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