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Human Rights and Ethnic Data Collection in Hungary

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Abstract

The article analyzes ethnic data collection pertaining to criminal justice in Hungary. With such a sensitive and delicate issue at hand, Hungary has decided on an evasive approach, resisting ethnic data collection by law enforcement authorities. The author argues that this approach has become one of the obstacles in fighting discrimination and ethnic profiling. Moreover, Hungary’s restrictive approach to ethno-national data classification also causes severe constitutional problems in other, noncriminal legal circumstances, where ethnic data is used in the context of additional rights and affirmative protection provided for ethno-national minorities. The first part of the article describes general problems relating to ethnic data collection and analyses of the Hungarian minority protection framework, in particular, the minority self-government structure (a unique constitutional institution). The second part focuses on the criminal justice system; the author’s aim is to show that prohibiting the official recognition and collection of data on ethnicity by criminal justice authorities has potentially ethnically discriminatory consequences.

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Notes

  1. See “Tárkitekintő–Sajtóanyagok”, at www.tarki.hu/kozvelemeny/kitekint/20060201.html (2 October 2006).

  2. Amnesty International (2006), Magyarország 2005-ben, available at http://www.amnesty.hu/content.php?oldal1=8&oldal2=150 (27.09.2006)

  3. See Legal Defence Bureau for National and Ethnic Minorities (NEKI), at www.neki.hu/news.html.

  4. Magyar Helsinki Bizottság/Hungarian Helsinki Committee, at www.helsinki.hu.

  5. See RomaPage, Kurt Lewin Alapítvány, at www.romapage.hu.

  6. See Országgyűlési Biztos Hivatala, at www.obh.hu.

  7. European Commission on Racism and Intolerance, Second Annual Report on Hungary (June 2000), Section E,para.14.

  8. Second report on Hungary, Adopted on 18 June 1999 made public on 21 March 2000, Para. 26. http://www.coe.int/T/E/human_rights/Ecri/5-Archives/1-ECRI’s_work/5-CBC_Second_reports/Hungary_CBC_2.asp.

  9. 2003 UNHCR Statistical Yearbook Country Data Sheet - Hungary. http://www.unhcr.ch/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/country?iso=hun.

  10. Census data is inaccurate because many Roma are reluctant to identify themselves as such. Some improvement is noticeable: Whereas in the 1991 census 142,683 persons declared themselves Roma, in 2001, this number increased to 190,046. Minority organizations put this number somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000. The most reliable number was provided by a survey in 1993/1994 estimating 456,000. See UNDP Avoiding the Dependency Trap. Bratislava 2002

  11. Act no. 77 of 1993.

  12. Directive 2000/43 EC, Official Journal of the European Communities 2000, L 180/22.

  13. See Farkas, Lilla (2004). The Monkey that does not See, Roma Rights Quarterly, 2004/2 http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=1940.

  14. A number of Parliamentary and Constitutional Court decisions have been passed on petitions of various ethno-national groups, like the Jews, Aegean Macedons, Russians, the Bunyevac, or Huns seeking recognition. See for example Constitutional Court Decision 2/2006.

  15. Both groups have estimated numbers of 10,000. Meanwhile, some doubt that certain recognized minorities (such as the Ruthenian for example) have fulfilled the statutory numerical requirements (the same doubts were raised on that of the 100-year presence of the Greeks). The legislator is of course free to recognize any group as a national or ethic minority (even lacking the general conditions), yet the statutory language setting forth the requirements therefore seems absolute and general and is thus somewhat misleading.

  16. See for example Karoly Kocsis-Eszter and Kocsis-Hodosi, Hungarian Minorities in the Carpathian Basin. Geographical Research Institute (Budapest: Research Centre for Earth Sciences and Minority Studies Programme of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1998), also at http://www.hungarian-history.hu/lib/hmcb/; Béla K. Király, Peter Pastor, and Ivan Sanders (eds.) Essays on World War I: Total war and peacemaking, a case study on Trianon (New York: Social Science Monographs, 1982); and C. A. Macartney, Hungary and her successors: The treaty of Trianon and its consequences, 1919–1937 (London: Oxford University Press, 1965).

  17. See for example, Balázs Majtényi, “What Has Happened to Our Model Child? The Creation and Evolution of the Hungarian Minority Act,” in European Yearbook of Minority Issues, Vol. 7.(2006/2007); Andras L. Pap, “Minority Rights and Diaspora Claims: Collision and Interdependence”, in. Osamu Ieda (ed.), The Status Law Syndrome: Post-Communist Nation-Building or Post-Modern Citizenship? (Budapest/Sapporo: Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Institute for Legal Studies – Hokkaido University, 2006).

  18. Again, see, Majtényi, “What Has Happened to Our Model Child?”; and Pap, “Minority Rights and Diaspora Claims.”

  19. Of course, the law does not prohibit the anonymous collection of census data.

  20. Stephen Deets, “Reconsidering East European Minority Policy: Liberal Theory and European Norms”, in East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Winter 2002).

  21. For a detailed case description, see Roma Rights 2003/1–2, pp. 107–108.

  22. See the minority ombudsman’s annual parliamentary reports or an interview with Antal Heizler, President of the Office for National and Ethnic Minorities, Népszabadság (Budapest), 24 July 2002.

  23. The President did not predict that more then 7 out of the 17 local self-governments running in the 2002 elections in Budapest (and some 30 out of the 48 registered nationally) would be “authentic Romanian.” Out of the 13 local Romanian minority self-governments operating between 1998 and 2002, he estimated that only three have “real Romanian blood” running in their veins. See the summary of an interview with Kreszta Trajan, in Népszabadság (21 August 2002).

  24. See the statement of Doru Vasile Ionescu in Népszabadság, 2002.08.15.

  25. Only five signatures are needed for the registration of a minority self-government (for which subsequently everybody, including members of the ‘majority,’ may vote).

  26. See Népszabadság (15 August 2002).

  27. It has to be noted that until a 2002 amendment of the Hungarian Constitution (which was necessitated by Hungary’s accession to the EU), there had been a contradiction between its Articles 68(4) and 70(1). While the former said that “[n]ational and ethnic minorities shall have the right to form local and national bodies for self-government,” the latter prescribed that “all adult Hungarian citizens have the right to vote [...] and the right to be elected.” Thus, while Article 68(4) established the right to self-government of the minorities, the latter Article stated the universality of voting rights.

  28. See Constitutional Court Decision 45/2005.

  29. See the interview with Antal Heizler, President of the Office for National and Ethnic Minorities, in Népszabadság (24 July 2002).

  30. Act 67 of 2001.

  31. The Parliament adopted the Act on the modification of the election of representatives to the minority self-governments and other acts relating to national and ethnic minorities on 13 June 2005, and before promulgation, it was sent for preliminary review to the Constitutional Court by the President. In decision 34/2005 (IX 29), the Court found that some of its provisions were unconstitutional. On 17 October 2005, the Parliament readopted the Act, incorporating the guidelines provided by the Constitutional Court. According to the new regulations, everyone has a right to vote (both active and passive) in the election of minority self-governments who (1) belongs to a national or ethnic minority defined in the Act on the rights of national and ethnic minorities and expresses his affiliation with that specific minority, (b) is a Hungarian citizen, (c) has the right to vote in the election of local authorities and mayors, and (d) is listed in the electoral register of minorities.

  32. Act CXIV of 2005.

  33. The fourth minority self-government elections took place in Hungary after this manuscript had been completed. Surprisingly, the elections brought a further increase in the number of local minority self-governments. Compared to the 1843 local minority self-governments established in 2002, their number grew to 2,049 in 2006, despite the fact that fewer votes were cast than before.

  34. The Hungarian Criminal Code (Act IV of 1978) criminalizes four types of behavior that may fall under the racially motivated category. These are: genocide (Article 155), apartheid (Article 157), violence against members of national, ethnic, or racial minorities and religious groups (Article 174/B), and incitement against community (Article 269).

  35. For more, see Farkas 2004.

  36. Article 174/B of Act 4 of 1978 on the criminal code.

  37. In cases of indirect discrimination, not only the ethnicity of the plaintiff(s) but also of the comparator(s) must be established. The latter may prove an insurmountable task.

  38. This is not to suggest that discrimination in education, employment, hosing, or the service sector would be less relevant or that ethnic data collection would be less problematic in these fields. Because of spatial constraints, however, these questions cannot be addressed here.

  39. Source: Unified Police and Prosecution Statistical Database.

  40. Article 32 of the Police Act.

  41. Act 34 of 1994.

  42. Article 29.

  43. Article 33.

  44. Article 38.

  45. Articles 29 and 33.

  46. Decisions no. 9/2004 and 65/2003.

  47. See for example, Andras L. Pap, “Ethnic discrimination and the war against terrorism – The case of Hungary,” in Gábor Halmai (ed.), Hungary: Human Rights in the Face of Terrorism, Special English Edition of Fundamentum, Human Rights Quarterly, Vandeplas Publishing: Human Rights Series 1, USA, 2006; and Andras L. Pap “Street Police Corruption – A Post-communist State of the Art,” Lecture presented for the Kokkalis Program on Southeastern and East-Central Europe, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/kokkalis/GSW3/Andras_Laszo.pdf.

  48. Act 19 of 1998.

  49. Article 33.

  50. Decision no. 65/2003.

  51. See Lilla Farkas, Gábor Kézdi, Sándor Loss and Zsolt Zádori, “A rendőrség etnikai profilalkotásának mai gyakorlata” [The Current Police Practice of Ethnic Profiling], in Belügyi Szemle (Interior Affairs Review) 2004/2-3.

  52. See Andras L. Pap, Bori Simonovits, Anna Balogi, and Lili Vargha, Research Report for Hungary: Results from the research project “A Comparative Study of Stop and Search Practices in Bulgaria, Hungary and Spain” (Budapest: TARKI, 2006).

  53. The research results are based on a survey series conducted during September, 2005, which shows that over the recent year, 23% of the Hungarian adult population was stopped by the police. Among the Roma respondents, 57% were stopped as pedestrians, at entertainment venues or some sort of event (a concert, say). By contrast, among non-Roma respondents, only 22% were stopped at such locations.

Acknowledgment

Special thanks to Zsofia Zvolenszky.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hungarian Academy of Sciences Institute for Legal Studies and Kodolányi College, Székesfehérvár, Hungary

    András L. Pap

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Correspondence to András L. Pap.

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This paper was written under the aegis of the Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

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Pap, A.L. Human Rights and Ethnic Data Collection in Hungary. Hum Rights Rev 9, 109–122 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-007-0032-4

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