Council of Europe says prison conditions are poor in Hungary

Hungary must report on how it is implementing remedies to address poor detention conditions by 1 December, a Council of Europe body said on Friday.

Hungary must report to the Council’s Committee of Ministers on the implementation of judgments issued by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) regarding overcrowding of detention facilities and prisons and “the lack of effective legal remedies” to address these problems, the 46-member body said in a statement on Friday.

The Strasbourg body’s statement noted its repeated calls on the authorities to adopt a comprehensive and long-term strategy to introduce effective remedies. The CoE reiterated its call on the authorities “to take additional measures, embedded in a coherent and overarching penal policy, to maintain numbers within prison capacity so as to resolve sustainably and for the long-term the problem of overcrowding”.

The authorities failed to follow up on complaints by detainees concerning their conditions of detention, the statement said, and it “strongly urged” the authorities “to enhance their efforts in improving material conditions and to provide concrete information on the measures taken or envisaged in this respect.”

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