Chief prosecutor initiates suspending two lawmakers’ immunity

Chief Public Prosecutor Péter Polt has initiated the suspension of the parliamentary immunity of two lawmakers in connection with a legal case involving a Budapest-based charity organisation and national tax authority NAV, Polt’s office said on Tuesday.

The case concerns an ongoing criminal investigation under which NAV’s officers conducted a search on suspected large-scale budgetary fraud at the charity’s Budapest premises in the 8th district in February 2022. The NAV officers informed the charity’s leader that under the law on criminal proceedings, beside the NAV officers and notary, only him and his legal representative were authorised to be present at the scene during the search, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

It said in the statement, that the charity’s leader had however entered the premises accompanied by journalists and had called on the two lawmakers present at the scene, Zita Gurmai of the Socialists and Momentum MEP Anna Donáth “to prevent NAV officers from conducting their lawful procedure”. The two politicians “stopped their action only when police officers arrived at the scene”, said the statement.

According to the statement, Gurmai and Donáth have been suspected of the offence “of group violence against officials of an authority”.

NAV announced on February 21 last year that it would conduct a search for documents at the Oltalom Evangelical charity’s offices in Danko street.

Oltalom said on its website twelve months earlier that due to financial difficulties it owed NAV 246 million forints (EUR 629,000) in unpaid payroll taxes which included a HUF 90 million penalty for delay. Its leader then said that the reason for owing NAV money was because the state had refused to pay the charity what it had been due to receive under a 2017 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.

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Source: MTI