European Court of Human Rights

SECOND SECTION

Application no. 41479/10
György BUDAHÁZY
against Hungary
lodged on 16 July 2010

STATEMENT OF FACTS

THE FACTS

The applicant, Mr György Budaházy, is a Hungarian national who was born in 1969 and lives in Diósd. He was represented before the Court by Mr T. Gaudi-Nagy, a lawyer practising in Budapest.

A.  The circumstances of the case

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.

On 4 July 2002 the applicant organised a spontaneous demonstration aimed at forcing the authorities to recount ballots of the 2002 legislative elections, bound for statutory destruction on 7 July 2002. This event, which had not been announced to the police, consisted of blocking all six lanes of a major Budapest bridge by parking six passenger cars across it. The demonstration started at about 8.20 a.m. The demonstrators, including the applicant, refused to comply with the police’s order to remove the vehicles. By 9.00 a.m. a crowd gathered and the situation evolved into a massive traffic jam all over Budapest. At about 11.00 a.m. the cars were finally towed away by the police, and the traffic flow resumed at about 12 noon.

Criminal proceedings were then instituted against the applicant and his accomplices. On 16 June 2008 he was convicted of attempted disturbance of a public utility. He was sentenced to 30 days of public work. The court dismissed the defendants’ arguments according to which they had been exercising their freedom of assembly. Making reference to the Court’s judgment in the case of Bukta and Others v. Hungary (no. 25691/04, ECHR 2007-III), the court made a distinction, holding that the applicant’s action could not be regarded as a spontaneous and prompt response to an event, nor was it not unlawful like in Bukta, since it had contravened the Highway Code and disturbed the functioning of a public utility. In the latter regard, the court observed that the demonstration had caused the traffic to become paralysed all over the capital for several hours and disturbed the running of 29 bus lines in respect of altogether 642 individual bus trips as scheduled.

On 26 November 2008 the Budapest Regional Court upheld this judgment. On 3 December 2009 the Supreme Court dismissed the defendants’ petition for review. This decision was served on 18 January 2010.

COMPLAINT

The applicant complains under Articles 10 and 11 of the Convention that his prosecution amounted to a violation of his right to freedom of expression and assembly.

QUESTION TO THE PARTIES

Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to freedom of peaceful assembly, contrary to Article 11 of the Convention?