The Commissioner for Fundamental Rights on the Constitutional Court's Decision

The Commissioner for Fundamental Rights on the Constitutional Court's Decision

Máté Szabó ombudsman holds the Constitutional Court's decision of 12 November exemplary in terms of the enforcement of the rights of the affected vulnerable people and the protection of fundamental rights in Hungary in general. The Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional and annulled the provision of the Minor Offences Act on the basis of the petition of the Commission for fundamental rights, which qualified the permanent living in the public place as a minor offence. The Court annulled those legal provisions as well which authorized the local governments to pass a decree for the definition of finable anti-social behavior.   

According to the Commissioner for fundamental rights, the decision implies that in Hungary the human dignity and the rule of law have existing guarantees and the punitive power of the state continues to be subject to appropriate constraints. Máté Szabó has welcomed and endorsed the decision which was open to the constitutional law arguments of the petition symbolizing the cooperation between the ombudsman and the Constitutional Court in the protection of fundamental rights. The Commissioner has pointed out regarding the decision that all this is not unprecedented. Namely, the Constitutional Court annulled the local government decree on the prohibition of scavenging in December 2011. The ombudsman sees his position confirmed in the decision saying that there is a rule of law and equal dignity only if it is clearly separated what is prohibited and sanctioned in a legal sense in a public place and if somebody may not be persecuted and punished solely for his/her hopeless social situation and homelessness.    

Regarding the decision, the ombudsman emphasized that methods and means of the combat against homelessness and the extreme poverty related to this as a social phenomenon and a social problem, in particular, the framework and limits of the state activity related to the prevention of becoming a homeless may be discussed and indeed need to be discussed. As an ombudsman he already addressed the issue in a number of reports and in the framework of a separate project in 2008 and made proposals and recommendations of both legislative and law application nature on several occasions. The decision of the Constitutional Court confirms as well that the provisions enabling the application of policing instruments unreasonably and widely and criminalizing the phenomenon of homelessness do not comply with the Hungarian Constitutional rules.    

The Commissioner will continue to pay particular attention to the protection of vulnerable people's rights, and consistently, he will combat the practice of authorities violating fundamental rights in his view and the constitutionally questionable rules by all means at his disposal. The ombudsman is confident, however, that he will not need to use his final legal instrument in all cases in order to have the improprieties revealed by him related to fundamental rights remedied.