On March 28th, 2007 the Supreme Court in an exraordinary remedy proceeding ruled in favor of the right to freedom of information and self determination. The HCLU filed suit against the Budapest Police Headquarters, since they have denied access to data about CCTV. The HCLU have enquired from the police about the placing, operating, effectiveness and economic aspects of the CCTV, but were denied access to maps on location of the cameras and were also denied access to the contracts between the district police headquarters and local governments relating to the operation of the CCTV.
In 2006 HCLU has already won the lawsuit, but the Budapest Police Headquarters had appealed for a special legal redress. The Supreme Court after re-examining the decision stated that the police has the obligation to notify the public with regard to where exactly cameras are operating and cannot deny this information citing crime prevention intrests. The court has also ruled that the police contracts regarding the CCTV also have to be made public.
The Supreme Court has changed it’s previous final decision on a few points. Accordingly, the police do not have to issue new statistics and studies on the impact, since in the course of the proceeding it came to light, that besides those few statistics, until 2004 no other statistics and studies of impact have been made on the CCTV. Moreover, the police also do not have the obligation to make public their development conceptions.