Inquiry into the Enforcement Proceedings in the Ombudsman's Office

Inquiry into the Enforcement Proceedings in the Ombudsman's Office

On the basis of the incoming complaints to the ombudsman, the signals of the representatives of the jurist profession and the recent press releases, the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights is planning a comprehensive inquiry into the Hungarian judicial enforcement system in the first semester of the year 2013.

The Hungarian ombudsmen continuously inquired into the complaints concerning the cases of judicial enforcement in the past period longer than a decade, within the framework of the legislation defining their competence, they started proceedings ex officio as well. As a consequence of these, a proposal was made for a comprehensive review of the judicial enforcement system; however, this has not been accomplished so far.

In 2011 Máté Szabó Commissioner for Fundamental Rights concluded for example that the fees of the independent court bailiffs may be disproportionately high compared to the value of the case according to the provisions of the existing decree which may influence the success of the enforcement proceedings in themselves. For a debt of 10 million HUF, where there are two debtors, the fee of the bailiff is even more than one and a half million HUF in case of a successful enforcement, and the amount does not contain the expenses yet. The debtor will rather be interested in losing his or her assets than in paying his or her original debt significantly increased by the expenses of the enforcement.

A further recognition is that the independent judicial bailiffs' fee calculation practice consisting of a number of items is not uniform and may be followed with difficulties by both the claimant and the debtor. The ombudsman asked the Minister of Administration and Justice to review the bailiffs' fee system in force, especially the enforcement proceedings launched against joint and several debtors and the extent of the commission that the bailiff is entitled to. In 2012 the Commissioner came to the conclusion that though the fee of the legal advisor, lawyer or notary acting in the enforcement proceeding was amended; the independent judicial bailiff's fee remained unchanged. On his repeated initiative, the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights has not received any answer from the Minister of Administration and Justice.

The Commissioner also noted that his office regularly receives complaints because of the shortness of the customers' service hours of the bailiffs, the bailiffs are hard to reach, the clients cannot inspect the documents, they receive answer for the petitions from the bailiffs only after long time. Currently the Ombudsman's Office inquires into several complaints in relation to the enforcement proceeding.

In view of the above mentioned, the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights decided to start another comprehensive inquiry.