Jobbik turns to OLAF’s head

Budapest (MTI) – The opposition Jobbik party is turning to the head of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) after the organisation rejected a request by the party to look into circumstances surrounding the peremptory dismissal by Hungary’s public prosecutor of a number of investigations.

Gábor Staudt, the party’s deputy group leader, told MTI on Saturday that Jobbik had originally turned to OLAF in mid-March with a request concerning six cases in which either investigations had been suddenly terminated or no charges had been raised.

According to Staudt, OLAF refused, citing the likely infringement of personal data that disclosure during an investigation would entail.

“They even wrote there was nothing to indicate an overriding public interest in the disclosure of the documents requested,” he said.

The Jobbik politician said that OLAF thereby sent a message to the prosecutors of European Union member states that criminal organisations and suspects could expect their cases to be summarily closed with impunity.

A spokesman for the prosecution service said in a background briefing earlier in the week that, since 2012, OLAF had issued thirty judicial recommendations and had raised four issues with the prosecutor’s office, which accordingly ordered investigations into all cases except when a case was already under way.

Photo: Balázs Béli

Source: MTI