The Ombudsman on the Mandatory Employment of Detainees

Press release:

The Ombudsman on the Mandatory Employment of Detainees

It should not be of a coercive or punitive nature. There should be unified legal regulation, including that of the wages. Social security entitlements should be included. These are, among others, the points raised by the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights with the competent Minister in connection with the employment of convicted persons, mandatory since 1 January.

According to the amendment of an Act effective as of 1 January 2012, convicted persons have to perform work. At present detainees are employed within penitentiary institutions, in economic companies of penitentiary institutions and/or in outside business organisations. Máté Szabó Ombudsman has conducted an ex officio inquiry to find out whether such work qualifies as coercion or as mandatory work and analysed the labour law and social security implications of such employment.

Having reviewed the relevant regulations Máté Szabó Ombudsman has found that pursuant to the observations of the International Labour Organization, convicted persons may perform work in other business organisations if they give their written consent, although this voluntary consent is rather of a formal character, since the conditions are far from being similar to those in free labour law relations.

The Commissioner for Fundamental Rights has established that the regulation of employment within the framework of law-enforcement institutions is not uniform. Law-makers should provide comprehensive guarantees for the employment of convicts and for relations between convicts and their penitentiary institutions. There are no clear criteria either for the determination of the wages of detainees. Low wages are an obstacle for the attainment of one of the main goals of employment, i.e. the promotion of social reintegration, since convicts cannot experience the advantages of revenue earned by working. The Ombudsman also points out in his report that the State, although it employs convicts in a quasi employment relationship, takes away entitlements from them, for example such employment does not count as period of employment necessary for old age pension.