This article was originally published by the Forum for Religious Freedom Europe (FOREF) as a statement of FOREF Europe at the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting 2016
BUDAPEST/WARSAW, 24 September 2016 (FOREF)– The Forum for Religious Freedom Europe prepared the following intervention for the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting and presented it on 27 September 2016 in Warsaw, Poland, at Working Session 12. This session covered issues of fundamental freedoms focusing on freedom of religion in the OSCE region.
FOREF’s Intervention on Hungary’s Religion Law 2014: New Religion Law at Variance with OSCE Standards and the European Convention on Human Rights
FOREF’s Intervention on Hungary’s Religion Law 2015: Amended Church Law Remains at Variance with OSCE Standards and the European Convention on Human Rights
Recommendations (September 2016):
The Forum for Religious Freedom Europe (FOREF) calls upon the Government of Hungary:
- To introduce legislation to Parliament that will amend Hungary’s law on the legal status of churches in a way that harmonizes with Helsinki standards, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the ruling of the ECtHR in Magyar Keresztény Mennonita Egyház and others v. Hungary.
- To restore the legal status of churches stripped of legal personality in 2011 through a procedure ruled unconstitutional by Hungary’s Constitutional Court and found in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights by the European Court of Human Rights.
Hungary ignores ruling of the European Court of Human Rights
In 2011 Hungary enacted a new law on the legal status of churches (Act CCVI of 2011). The law stripped approximately 200 religious communities of legal personality, and reduced the number of legally recognized churches in Hungary to fourteen. In February 2012, responding to international pressure, Parliament expanded the number of recognized churches to thirty-one. In February 2013, Hungary’s Constitutional Court ruled the deregistration of recognized churches had been unconstitutional. Responding to the Court’s decision, Parliament amended the constitution in March 2013. In June and September 2013, Parliament amended Act CCVI to create a two-tiered classification consisting of “religious communities” and “incorporated churches.” In September 2013, Parliament also amended the constitution explicitly to grant Parliament the authority to select religious communities for “cooperation” with the state in the service of “public interest activities.” In April 2014 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled in Magyar Keresztény Mennonita Egyház and others v. Hungary that Hungary had violated Articles 9 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a judgment which became final in September 2014.
In September 2015 the Government of Hungary made public a new draft of the church law, but ignored suggestions from Hungary’s opposition political parties and NGOs intended to improve the bill. In December 2015, the Government of Hungary introduced the bill to Parliament unaltered and failed to secure the necessary two-thirds majority vote in Parliament to pass. Since failing to pass the bill through Parliament, the Government of Hungary has taken no further steps to amend its church law, nor has it taken steps to address the ongoing violations of the right of religious freedom identified by the ECtHR.
Many deregistered religious communities in Hungary currently exist in a legal no man’s land, recognized neither as churches nor as religious associations. As entities without clear legal status they are unable to collect the one percent voluntary church tax, their clergy are denied tax exemptions given to legally recognized churches, and their ability to maintain schools and enter into contracts is severely impaired. The longer their legal status remains unresolved, the harder it becomes for deregistered churches to maintain their institutions, thereby forcing them to function informally in a legal underground. In the absence of a long overdue legal remedy, many small religious communities in Hungary may soon cease to exist.
FOREF urges the Government of Hungary to address without delay the current violations of religious freedom occurring in Hungary, to restore the original legal status of religious groups illegally stripped of legal personality in 2011, and to amend the law on the legal status of churches to accord with Helsinki standards, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights.
