Hungary to appeal Strasbourg court’s ruling on Bangladeshi asylum seekers

Budapest (MTI) – Hungary will appeal to the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) over a ruling by the Strasbourg court ordering the state to compensate two Bangladeshi asylum seekers for wrongly detaining and deporting them in 2015, a government official said on Tuesday.

In a ruling issued last month, the ECtHR said that Hungary had violated the European Convention on Human Rights by detaining the two asylum seekers in the Röszke transit zone near Hungary’s southern border. The court also said that authorities had later sent them back to Serbia, which the ECtHR said had put them under the risk of facing inhumane treatment in the Greek refugee reception centres.

The court ordered the Hungarian state to pay the petitioners 18,705 euros each in compensation and legal fees.

Speaking at a press conference after a meeting of parliament’s justice committee, justice ministry state secretary Pál Völner said the two asylum seekers had spent 23 days in the transit zone before leaving the country. He said the Helsinki Committee had taken on their legal representation while they were in the zone and took their case all the way to the Strasbourg court.

Völner noted that the court had awarded the asylum seekers approximately 3 million forints (EUR 9.600) each in compensation and close to 3 million forints in legal fees to the Helsinki Committee.

In the absence of the petitioners, the compensations are awarded to the “so-called rights organisation”, Völner said, adding that the Helsinki Committee had announced in the press its intention to collect the amount.

Völner also said that illegal migration was a process “encouraged” by foreign “pro-migration organisations”, adding that Italian authorities had found evidence of “collaboration” between people smugglers and “migrant organisations”.

The state secretary said Hungary was being pressured from abroad. Völner said US billionaire George Soros’s scheduled visit to Brussels later this week was proof of this, arguing that Soros was travelling to Brussels to force his “pro-migration policies” onto Hungary through the EU.

Source: MTI