The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union is a human rights NGO. Since our foundation in 1994, we have been working for everybody being informed about their fundamental human rights and empowered to enforce it against the undue interference by those in position of public power.
The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union’s newly launched program is announcing a tender on investigative journalism.
In the summer of 2006, the HCLU turned to the Ministry of Economy and Transportation and the Ministry of Justice and Law Enforcement requesting public interest data on the billions worth of contracts between the ministries and Microsoft.
The court’s first instance decision favored index.hu (leading Hungarian internet news provider) journalist Zoltán Bogád and the public in the lawsuit which has become known as the Hankook-trial. The lawsuit became necessary, because the ministry denied public access to the state-subsidized contract between the State and Hankook Tire.
On August 7th, 2007 Dr. Bencze József, Liutenant General High Comissioner of Hungarian National Police invited Balázs Dénes, President of the HCLU and his colleagues to a meeting at the National Police Headquarters. For results of this meeting, please read the below press release.
Only a few know that EU laws are edited and finalized by thousands of so-called „responsible”, unknown expert groups, advisory committees and work groups. Even those who continuously follow up on the EU legislation process don’t really know what goes on behind the scenes. All this is a good example of the secrecy surrounding these groups, especially their members.
On July 13th, 2007 the Metropolitan Court returned its verdict in the Amnesty International (AI) vs. National Police Headquarters (NPH) lawsuit. The HCLU has taken on the legal representation of AI during the proceedings.