Housing Rights in Hungary: Parliamentary Commissioners Act on Abuse by Municipalities

13 May 2005

Complaint by ERRC and Roma Civil Rights' Foundation Triggers Action by Hungarian Parliamentary Commissioners to Review the Constitutionality of Social Housing Regulations

Budapest. In a decision communicated this week, on 2 May 2005 the Parliamentary Commissioner for Civil Rights and the Parliamentary Commissioner for National and Ethnic Minority Rights officially requested the Minister of Interior to order the county-level administrative offices to examine the local self-government regulations on social housing, with the aim to ensure that criteria for allocating social housing are constitutional. The decision follows appeals by the ERRC and the Roma Civil Rights Foundation urging action following a number of Constitutional Court decisions.

On February 22, the Hungarian Constitutional Court struck down as unconstitutional provisions of Budapest 3rd district local government decree regulating social housing. The ERRC had challenged the decree on a number of grounds, such as its incompatibility with the Housing Act and the fact that it has a disproportionate, negative impact on Roma. The Roma Civil Rights Foundation (RCRF), a Budapest-based civil organisation submitted a similar motion, as a result of which the Court ruled that the Budapest 8th and 7th district local government social housing provisions were unconstitutional. Similar complaints submitted by the ERRC and RCRF with respect to the rules governing the allocation of social housing in five other municipalities are currently pending with the Hungarian Constitutional Court.

Following the February rulings, the two civil organisations jointly requested the Parliamentary Commissioner for Civil Rights and the Parliamentary Commissioner for National and Ethnic Minority Rights to examine the problem of arbitrary or discriminatory criteria for the allocation of social housing in Hungary on a nationwide basis. On May 2, the Commissioners issued a report stating, among other things, that based on their experiences "the self-governments often emphasize their interest as owners over their constitutional (social) duties", even though the Housing Act limits their ownership rights by declaring that the conditions of providing housing have to be regulated by the self-governments based on social grounds.

This is a particularly important step in the legislative development in the right to adequate housing in Hungary. This is of particular significance for Roma, who have borne disproportionately a dramatic erosion of the housing rights framework which has taken place over the past fifteen years. Of particularly acute concern:

• Forced evictions have risen dramatically in recent years; previous legal protections against forced evictions available to tenants have been removed; Roma are forcibly evicted from housing more often than ethnic Hungarians and rarely if ever provided with justice when such evictions contravene domestic or international law;
• Housing arrangements in Hungary are frequently racially segregated, and Roma tend to live in demonstrably worse conditions than non-Roma in Hungary;

Roma are often denied access to social housing on a racially discriminatory basis; local governments have sold off meager social housing stocks and adopted rules preventing persons most in need of social housing from having access to such housing.
This week's action by the Parliamentary Commissioners importantly highlights the need for urgent government action in this area.

This week's action by the Parliamentary Commissioners importantly highlights the need for urgent government action in this area.

Further information on the issue can be found at http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=2157 and http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=2050.

For details regarding the above action, please contact Aladár Horváth, President of the Roma Civil Rights Foundation (phone: +3613524502) and/or Anita Danka, ERRC Staff Attorney (e-mail: anita.danka@errc.org, phone: +361413 2200)