Child protection referendum: groups encouraging for invalid vote to be fined?

The National Election Committee (NVB) on Friday imposed fines on civil organisations that had encouraged people to give invalid answers to questions in a referendum concerning child protection regulations held simultaneously with the April 3 election.

According to the NVB, a referendum campaign must not involve such activities because that would go against “the constitutional aim of directly exercising (people’s) power and against the legislator’s aim”. Encouraging participants to make a referendum invalid is “abuse of the law”, the committee said.

A fine of 176,400 forints (EUR 466) each has been imposed on groups including Amnesty International Hungary, foundations Artemisszio and Szivárvány (Rainbow) Mission, the Hatter association, the Labrisz lesbian association, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, and gay sports association Atlasz.

Acting on a different complaint but for the same reason, the committee fined Amnesty International a further 3 million forints.