Ombudsman Under Pressure

(MTI) – If reports concerning an exchange of letters between the NGO Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (TASZ) and the ombudsman’s office concerning a scrapped needle-exchange programme in Budapest turn out to be true, then the ombudsman should resign immediately, the cabinet chief said on Friday.

A report in today’s Magyar Nemzet’s online edition suggested that someone from the office of László Székely, the ombudsman for fundamental rights, had shared information in a report prepared by the office concerning the programme for drug addicts with the rights NGO before it was published.

János Lázár said at a local forum in his home town of Hodmezovasarhely that if the report turns out to be true then the ombudsman’s office will have lost all credibility.

In such a case, it would not be good enough for the ombudsman to have launched an internal investigation into the matter, Lázár said.