A recent amendment to the law on right to informational self-determination and freedom of information (Act CXII of 2011) all but ensures that Fidesz will operate the government in complete darkness. The amendment is alarming for many reasons. Most crucially, it casts a wide net in banning public access to any information handled by public bodies that may be controlled by, for example, the State Audit Office, Government Accountability Office, the Public Prosecutor or the Ombudsman. The amendment passed in an insane two days at a conspicuous time when the major NGOs and news portals were about to ask for the bids in a tender for tobacco retail licenses, which reportedly went to party loyalists. With this law the demonstrable corruption of Fidesz can continue without checks and discussions.

According to the Eötvös Károly Institute, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, the Constitutional Court’s decision to hear the President of the National Judicial Office behind closed doors undermines the transparency of decision-making by a public office, the right to freedom of information and the principle of fair trial.

The government has already waged a full scale attack on fundamental rights and democratic institutions with the Fourth Amendment to the Fundamental Law, Hungary’s new constitution. Now an amendment to the law on equal opportunity will open the door for segregation in schools under the paper-thin veneer of positive discrimination. The HCLU opposes both the constitutional provision which allows discrimination and the amendment to the equal opportunity law based on the former.

The delegation of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission), the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional matters, has visited Hungary with the mandate to reexamine and reevaluate the Fourth Amendment to the Fundamental Law of Hungary and its potential consequences.

The Central Institute of Stomatology directly discriminated and violated the principle of equal treatment by refusing people living with HIV and AIDS (PLHA) patients’ dental care and oral surgery not related to their infection – the Equal Treatment Authority ruled in its condemning decision.

Lawyers from HCLU are defending a number of young activists who have recently been charged for occupying the headquarters of the governing party, FIDESZ and for blocking traffic around the Hungarian Parliament. The response by the police to the demonstrations was meant to instill fear and to scare people away from similar acts in the future.