Joint Report of the Ombudsman and his Deputy on the Water Supply Cuts in Ózd - AJBH-EN
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null Joint Report of the Ombudsman and his Deputy on the Water Supply Cuts in Ózd
Joint Report of the Ombudsman and his Deputy on the Water Supply Cuts in Ózd
The decision of the Town Council of Ózd to put a limitation on the use of public wells and roadside pumps has led to ethnic discrimination and infringed on the rights to health and to healthy drinking water, states the report concluding the joint investigation conducted by the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights and his Deputy in charge of the protection of the interests of future generations.
On 20 June 2013 the Town Council of Ózd adopted a decision to turn off 27 roadside pumps completely, and reduce the pressure in a further 62 as of the beginning of July. The decision on reducing water supply was allegedly meant to urge the population not to waste water and to reduce the abuse of the free water supply. Since there are some 3,000 households in Ózd with no running water, long queues started to form at the remaining roadside pumps. Press reports on the situation pointed out that the Council's decision had adversely affected, in the first place, the socially disadvantaged population of the town, living in a slum‑like environment, whose majority is of Roma descent.
As a result of a widespread information gathering and data analysis, Commissioner for Fundamental Rights László Székely and Marcel Szabó, Deputy Commissioner in charge of environmental rights have issued a joint report establishing that the reference of the Town Council to the waste and abuse of free water supply was unfounded. On the one hand, water consumption measured at the free wells and roadside pumps did not exceed the quantity specified in a related council ordinance and, on the other hand, people having to use the pumps with reduced pressure could get less water than the subsistence minimum for personal needs and the public health minimum of water supply stipulated by the law. The Deputy Commissioner has also pointed out that water is an essential prerequisite of life, therefore, the right to drinking water may not be separated from the fundamental right to life.
The joint report has stated that the Council's decision seemingly affected everyone; however, it had a much graver effect on an easily identifiable group of the population, since most roadside pumps are located in areas predominantly populated by people of Roma descent. The report has also emphasized that it may not be accepted as an excuse for the exemption from the infringement of the requirement of equal treatment, i.e., the fact that the decision seemingly affects everyone does not, under any circumstances, make the infringement of the requirement of equal treatment disappear. Inquiring into the issue of exemption in the spirit of the Constitutional Court's directives and on the basis of the regulations in effect, one may find that the Town Council's decision, putting restrictions on a fundamental right, was arbitrary, its implementation was not unavoidable, it manifested itself as a type of collective punishment violating human dignity, and it could not be proved that the restriction was proportionate to the expected effect. That is why the Commissioner and his Deputy have established both the violation of human dignity and the discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin.
Since the local government first suspended then revoked its decision, the Ombudsman and his Deputy have issued recommendations to the local government and, relative to regulating and supervising, to the Minister for National Economy, the competent government office and the Hungarian Energy and Public Utility Regulatory Authority in order to prevent such incidents from recurring in the future.
The Hungarian text of the report may be found at: