Bán-Forgács NóraThe role of Ombudsman in a changing world with crisis is one of the most contested topics in contemporary constitutional discourse. The increasing literature is concerned with a “permanent stage” of crisis and its consequences.[1] Some countries, choose to introduce a permanent extraordinary legal order to handle the crisis, others are curtailing their democratic institutions.[2]
Under crisis certain group of people, for example, ethnic minorities, people belonging to disadvantaged socio-economic groups, women, children, immigrants, and refugees are vulnerable. The measures taken to combat the situation, may lead to impediments regarding access to healthcare and education or a fair distribution of economic resources.[3]
Bellow, we try to summarize the activity of the Hungarian Ombudsman during crisis management.
The Hungarian Ombudsman does not publish its case law in its website, not even in an anonymised format. Its jurisdiction can be evidenced by its annual reports. The Report of 2022 reflects on a number of ’classical’ humanitarian assistance the Hungarian Ombudsman has provided for Ukrainian refugees. Traditionally, humanitarian assistance is designated to special agencies not to the Ombudsperson per se, but the Hungarian Ombudsman ”personally handed over donations collected by the staff of her Office, in particular durable food, toiletries and clothing, essential for everyday life, to those in need.”[4]
Our criticism in this blog is that the main focus of the Ombudsman should not be to collect donations from his own staff, rather, to provide effective protection for refugees. We claim that it is beyond the Ombudsman's classic role to focus on the donations of his own staff as one of the main activity, rather than exercising scrutiny over the government, focusing on a comprehensive picture of the legal standards and human rights protection in relation to Ukrainan refugee crisis.
The Ombudsman also engaged in the dissemination of information, designated so called ”information points” both at the boarder (Beregsurány) and in local offices.[5] In 2023, again the Ombudsman emphasizes his humanitarian commitment and his active role in the dissemination of information for refugees.[6] The Ombudsperson emphasized in 2023 that its website is developed in Ukrainian language, so that they provide up-to-date information for the Ukrainian refugees.[7]
Again, in this blog, we wish to underlie that the annual report of the Ombudsman lacks effective legal remedies and concrete results his work led to ease the suffer of refugees.
The Ombudsman does not raise any objection on the basis of the rule of law claiming the number of refugees arriving in Hungary has significantly decreased by 2023, however, the emergency legal regime is still in force in Hungary as a justification for extraordinary legal system.
Emergency in Hungary was declared in May 2023 due to continued refugee crisis, and then in November 2023, and most recently until 24 May 2024. This was extended again by the Parliament in May 2024. Although the Hungarian Ombudsman failed to address the legality of the continued state of emergency and its justification, Deputy Ombudsman for the Protection of Future Generations noted that with the escalation and prolongation of the war between Russia and Ukraine the focus has shifted to the energy crisis and economic recession as a justification for the special legal order, and therefore emergency legislation has become ‘business as usual’ so to say, the ”norm” which is universally applied in Hungary.[8] The Deputy Ombudsman tried to address this problem with limited success: he issued a number of awareness-raising briefings, including a summary on the compatibility of emergency regulation and the protection of the interests of future generations.[9]
In August, 2024, Communique of the Deputy Ombudsman for National Minorities on the amendment of the rules on state aid for refugees from Ukraine (Gov. Regulation 134/2024. VI. 28.) stressed that under the amendments, asylum seekers are only eligible for subsidised accommodation if they come from a part of Ukraine that is declared by the Hungarian government as a "war-affected area". Against the new legislation, Deputy Ombudsman underlined the importance of the principle of legal certainty and non-discrimination as a fundamental duty of all public authorities in Hungary. The respect of fundamental rights is a critical aspect in the implementation of the envisaged measures, in particular the need to provide sufficient time for the persons concerned to adapt to the changed rules. However, the Deputy Ombudsman failed to recognize the unconstitutionality of the new amendments, even if she had concerns against the legislation, she only made a few non-biding comments.
In the second year of the Ombudsman report, in 2023, we were able to trace more specifics, mostly details about the difficulties of integrating Roma refugees from Ukraine, but this time we do not learn about the achievements of the Ombudsman's recommendations and the solutions he has proposed to ease the problems. This is quite problematic, given the fact that generally, the Ombudsman shall serve in every country as a primary source for “ready made’ suggestions especially when human rights of vulnerable groups at stake.
As a conclusion, we claim that the Hungarian Ombudsman’s activity during Coronavirus crisis and then in the Ukrainian refugee crisis, remained largely insufficient.
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[1] Gárdos-Orosz, Fruzsina, The normative standards of human rights protection in normalcy and in emergency in Hungary, In: Monika, Florczak-Wątor; Fruzsina, Gárdos-Orosz; Jan, Malíř; Max, Steuer (szerk.) States of Emergency and Human Rights Protection : The Theory and Practice of the Visegrad Countries Abingdon, Egyesült Királyság / Anglia : Routledge of Taylor and Francis Group (2024) 292 p. pp. 124-144. , 21 p.; Gárdos-Orosz, Fruzsina, Poszt-COVID: ami velünk maradt, a különleges jogrend, In: Bán-Forgács, Nóra; Lőrincz, Viktor Olivér; Mezei, Kitti; Szentgáli-Tóth, Boldizsár (szerk.) Poszt-COVID : A Covid-19 hatásai a jogrendszerre. Fruzsina, Gárdos-Orosz ; Nóra, Bán-Forgács, Introduction - The (non)resilience of the Hungarian Legal System: From Populist Constitutionalism to a Permanent State of Danger, In: Fruzsina, Gárdos-Orosz (szerk.) The Resilience of the Hungarian Legal System since 2010. A Failed Resilience? Wien, Ausztria : Springer Nature (2024) 190 p.Budapest, Magyarország : Akadémiai Kiadó (2024); Kecső, Gábor ; Szentgáli-Tóth, Boldizsár ; Bettina, Bor, Emergency Regulations Entailing a Special Case of Norm Collision. Revisiting the Constitutional Review of Special Legal Order in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic; Juridical Tribune 14. : 1 pp. 5-26. , 22 p. (2024)
[2] Bán-Forgács, Nora ; Szentgáli-Tóth, Boldizsár ; Szilágyi, Emese, When the government takes the initiative: governments and parliaments under pressure during coronavirus crisis In: Bratislava Legal Forum 2023 : State as a protector and violator of individual rights Pozsony, Szlovákia : Univerzita Komenského v Bratislave, Právnická fakulta (2023) 276 p. pp. 230-240. , 11 p. Szentgáli-Tóth, Boldizsár ; Dr. Szilágyi, Emese ; Bor, Bettina, Crises and democracy:The impact of COVID-19 on V4 countries' electoral systems.: The Case of Hungary, ARSBONI 11 : 2 pp. 39-54. , 16 p. (2023)
[3] Farzamfar, Mehrnoosh and Janne Salminen, The supervision of legality by the Finnish Parliamentary Ombudsman during the COVID-19 pandemic, Nordisk Administrativt Tiddskrift, Vol 99 Nr. 2 (2022): Covid-19 og krisehåndtering i de nordiske forvaltningene. Some countries have similair challanges. See: Halasz, Iván, the role of the czech, slovak, and polish ombudsman during the first wave of the covid-19 epidemic; in: željko, mirjanić (szerk.) међународни научни скуп „изазови и перспективе развоја правних система у xxi вијеку”: зборник радова, година iii, бања лука, број 3 (2023), том i / international scientific conference “challenges and perspectives of the development of legal systems in the xxi century” conference proceedings, year iii, banja luka, no. 3 (2023), Banja Luka, Bosznia-Hercegovina : University of Banja Luka Faculty of Law (2023) 389 p. p. 79 , 87 p.
[4] See: Report of the Hungarian Ombudsman.2023. p. 29,
[5] See: Report of the Hungarian Ombudsman.2022. p. 7. and 17.
[6] See: Report of the Hungarian Ombudsman.2023. p. 29,
[7] See: Report of the Hungarian Ombudsman.2023. p. 29,
[8] See for emergency literature: Gárdos-Orosz, Fruzsina, The normative standards of human rights protection in normalcy and in emergency in Hungary, In: Monika, Florczak-Wątor; Fruzsina, Gárdos-Orosz; Jan, Malíř; Max, Steuer (szerk.) States of Emergency and Human Rights Protection : The Theory and Practice of the Visegrad Countries, Abingdon, Egyesült Királyság / Anglia : Routledge of Taylor and Francis Group (2024) 292 p. pp. 124-144. , 21 p.; Gárdos-Orosz, Fruzsina, Poszt-COVID: ami velünk maradt, a különleges jogrend, In: Bán-Forgács, Nóra; Lőrincz, Viktor Olivér; Mezei, Kitti; Szentgáli-Tóth, Boldizsár (szerk.) Poszt-COVID : A Covid-19 hatásai a jogrendszerre, Budapest, Magyarország : Akadémiai Kiadó (2024) Florczak-Wątor, Monika ; Fruzsina, Gárdos-Orosz ; Malíř, Jan ; Steuer, Max, States of emergency and fundamental rights in books and in action, In: Monika, Florczak-Wątor; Fruzsina, Gárdos-Orosz; Jan, Malíř; Max, Steuer (szerk.) States of Emergency and Human Rights Protection: The Theory and Practice of the Visegrad Countries Abingdon, Egyesült Királyság / Anglia : Routledge of Taylor and Francis Group (2024) 292 p. pp. 1-14. , 14 p. See also: Kecső, Gábor ; Szentgáli-Tóth, Boldizsár ; Bettina, Bor, Emergency Regulations Entailing a Special Case of Norm Collision. Revisiting the Constitutional Review of Special Legal Order in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic, JURIDICAL TRIBUNE 14. : 1 pp. 5-26. , 22 p. (2024); Kecső, Gábor ; Szentgáli-Tóth, Boldizsár ; Bettina, Bor, Emergency Regulations Entailing a Special Case of Norm Collision. Revisiting the Constitutional Review of Special Legal Order in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic, JURIDICAL TRIBUNE 14. : 1 pp. 5-26. , 22 p. (2024)
[9] See: Report of the Hungarian Ombudsman.2023. p. 18
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The research was carried out under the project "The responsiveness of the legal system in a post-Covid society: risks and opportunities" (05016764); funded by the High-Risk Grant for Research on Post-COVID Phenomena by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences; Host institution: Centre for Social Sciences.
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The views expressed above belong to the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Centre for Social Sciences.