In his capacity as a National Human Rights Institution, the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights is obliged to stand up against legislation that violates the fundamental rights of Hungarian citizens, as well as to protect the rights that they are guaranteed in the international treaties and the binding documents of the European Union.

He requests action related to the provision of the Slovakian Penal Code entitled “denial of peaceful settlement after the Second World War” running counter to international treaties and certain treaties of the European Union, with a view to preventing criminal legal sanctioning based on the public denial or questioning of the legal documents referred to in the provision, which may also be applied against Hungarian nationals living in Hungary.

It should be clarified that the amendment of the incriminated criminal law protects the “peaceful settlement” that was achieved on the basis of the laws adopted by the representative bodies of the Republic of Czechoslovakia or the Slovak National Council, an integral part of which are those 13 so-called Beneš decrees which basically deprived more than 4,000,000 ethnic Hungarians and Germans of their basic life conditions. These decrees and the subsequent laws that confirmed them have not been formally repealed ever since.
The restriction of the disputes on viewing these legal documents with criminal law instruments raises concerns all the more because in Slovakia, there are continuing expropriation procedures against the current owners of land property, in which those decisions on the confiscation of the land properties owned by ethnic Hungarian and German private individuals that were adopted after the closing of the Second World War but were not executed for administrative reasons for several decades, according to the official Slovak standpoint, are still deemed valid and are used, by recalling these legal documents. Consequently, the legal interest of the disapproved provision of the Slovakian Penal Code that is declared one to be protected by calling for the sentence of imprisonment is the entirety of such legal documents which were built on the collective punishment of people who belonged to an ethnic minority and they served the foundation of the state’s measures aimed at disenfranchisement. 

With regard to all this, this criminal provision is not compatible 
-    with Article 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, pursuant to which everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. 
-    with the provision in the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) signed in Helsinki, pursuant to which ensuring respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the legal equality of nationalities, was put as the principle governing the mutual relations of the participating states.
-    as a participant of the Helsinki process, which was also signed by Czechoslovakia, with the spirit of the Charter of Paris for a New Europe, which stipulates that the questions related to national minorities can only be solved satisfactorily in a democratic political framework. The rights of persons of national minorities shall be fully respected as part of universal human rights.
-    with regard to Slovakia’s European Union membership, with Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union, based on which the Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. 
-    with Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, according to which everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.

Thus, based on all the above and in line with the content of these letters, there is a threat that as a result of the chilling effect of the relevant provision of the Slovakian Penal Code, all those who wish to use domestic or international legal remedy because of the legal restrictions committed by the earlier Slovak state and the recent property expropriations committed by referring to the latter, may waive the available lawful instruments of enforcing their rights, in fear of the potential application of criminal legal sanctions, even in case that the sentence of imprisonment for expressing critical opinions against the legal documents generated as part of the “peaceful settlement” after the Second World War does not become general practice.

The incriminated provision of the Slovakian Penal Code primarily affects the ethnic Hungarian minority with Slovak citizenship in the Felvidék (‘Upper Hungary’) region but as consequence of the provisions on the territorial scope of the Slovakian Penal Code, Slovakia may even launch a criminal procedure against Hungarian citizens living in Hungary under this legal title, even for expressing an opinion on the internet. The basic problem, i.e., the grievances suffered by the ethnic Hungarian population in Slovakia after the Second World War can only be peacefully settled by repealing the so-called 13 Beneš decrees, which declared Hungarians collectively responsible for the Second World War, however, I have no competence to propose such action, contrary to the criminal provision that has recently taken effect.
 

Letter of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights of Hungary to the President of the European Parliament Ms. Roberta Metsola.

Letter of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights of Hungary to the Public Defender of Rights of the Slovak Republic Mr. Róbert Dobrovodský, PhD., LL.M.

Letter of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights of Hungary to the Director of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Ms. Maria Telalian.

Letter of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights of Hungary to the High Commissioner on National Minorities of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Mr. Christophe Kamp