Civil society organisations warn that the functioning of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights, the country’s national human rights institution, continues to fall short of international standards, failing to protect human rights and vulnerable communities. They remind that the new Commissioner, who will have to be nominated shortly, should be selected in a transparent and merit-based procedure.
The assessment of civil society organisations follows the 2022 downgrade of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights as a national human rights institution by the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) due to its inactivity in several key human rights areas, which, according to GANHRI, evidenced a lack of independence. Amnesty International Hungary, Háttér Society, the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, the Polgár Foundation and the Streetlawyer Association are of the view that despite the downgrade, no meaningful improvements have occurred in the past years, and the Commissioner continues to fail in fulfilling its mandate to effectively promote and protect all human rights.
In a new background paper, the civil society organisations raise attention to the following key concerns:
- the Commissioner has demonstrated continued inactivity in areas where its pre-2022 performance was deemed inadequate by GANHRI, including violations affecting LGBTQI+ persons, refugees and migrants, human rights defenders, shrinking civic space, media pluralism, and judicial independence;
- the problematic consolidation of independent human rights mechanisms under the Commissioner’s Office has led to deficient monitoring of detention, weakened protection against discrimination, and weakened protection against police abuse;
- civil society organisations have experienced repeated lack of response from the Commissioner to requests, petitions or complaints submitted on behalf of their clients concerning politically sensitive human rights violations;
- the regulatory framework still does not prescribe a broad and transparent selection and appointment process.
The mandate of the current Commissioner will expire on 25 September 2025; the President of the Republic’s window to nominate a new Commissioner will commence on 27 June 2025. Earlier this month, twenty Hungarian civil society organisations asked the President of the Republic to establish a selection process that ensures transparency and provides for a meaningful consultation with a wide range of relevant actors. Signatories stressed that a transparent and merit-based selection process, carried out in line with international standards, could contribute in the medium term to the proper functioning of the Hungarian national human rights institution and to the restoration of public confidence in it. However, to date, the President of the Republic has not replied, and there is no indication that he intends to follow GANHRI’s recommendations regarding the selection process.
The civil society organisations’ background paper is available here.