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2019 |
Osservatorio sulle fonti / Observatory on Sources of Law ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section: Sources of Law in the EU member States HUNGARY By Viktor Zoltán Kazai, Central European University, Budapest |
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Name of the Act/s |
Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Szurovecz v. Hungary, Appl. no. 15428/16 |
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Date of Text (Adopted) |
8 October 2019 |
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Type of text (name in English / name in the official language) |
Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights |
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Enacted by |
European Court of Human Rights |
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Subject area |
Freedom of expression, Freedom of the press |
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Comment |
The applicant is a journalist at a Hungarian online news portal who wanted to cover the activities of a human rights NGO in a reception centre for asylum-seekers and refugees during the “the refugee crisis” in May 2015. The applicant requested permission from the Office of Immigration and Nationality (OIN) to enter different reception centers, but the requests were rejected based on the protection of the security and the right to privacy of asylum-seekers. The journalist challenged the refusal in a judicial review procedure, but the Budapest administrative and labor court concluded that the OIN’s decision was not an administrative act, therefore no judicial remedy was available in the case. Given the great significance of the issue, several third-party interveners submitted amici curiae to the ECtHR, such as Media Legal Defence Initiative, Index on Censorship, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, European Publishers Council, PEN International, Hungarian Helsinki Committee, the Dutch Association of Journalists, and the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom. The ECtHR observed that the domestic authorities had not given sufficient consideration to whether the refusal of permission to access and conduct journalistic research inside the reception centre, for reasons concerning the private life and security of asylum-seekers, had been effectively necessary in practice. The justices concluded that the absence of any real balancing of the interests in the issue by the domestic authorities constituted an absolute refusal which failed to satisfy the requirements of proportionality under Article 10 of the Convention. Consequently, the Court found a violation of the applicant’s freedom of expression. |
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Secondary sources/ doctrinal works (if any) |
For an excellent summary of the situation of the freedom of the press see Erdelyi, Peter: What happened in the Hungarian media could happen in your country too, Euronews, Nov 21, 2019, https://www.euronews.com/2019/11/21/a-free-press-no-more-the-media-in-hungary-has-become-nothing-more-orban-s-mouthpiece-view Voorhoof, Dirk – Ronan Ó Fathaigh: Denying journalist access to asylum-seeker ‘reception centre’ in Hungary violated Article 10 ECHR, Strasbourg Observers, Nov 4, 2019, https://strasbourgobservers.com/2019/11/04/denying-journalist-access-to-asylum-seeker-reception-centre-in-hungary-violated-article-10-echr/ |
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Available Text |