European Court of Human Rights

SECOND SECTION

Application no. 19400/11
R. G. and Others
against Hungary
lodged on 22 March 2011

STATEMENT OF FACTS

THE FACTS

The first applicant, Mr R. G., is a Serbian national who was born in 1972 and lives in Budapest. The second applicant, Ms T. H., a Hungarian national, is his common-law wife who was born in 1973. The other three applicants are their minor children, X. H. (born in 2006), B. H. (born in 2001) and M. H. (born in 1996).

The applicants are represented before the Court by Mr D. Palotai, a lawyer practising in Budapest.

A.  The circumstances of the case

In 2007 the first applicant, once active in a drug-trafficking mafia run by Serbians in the Netherlands, reported to the Hungarian authorities. He admitted to various offences he had committed and gave information, secretly, about the activities of the mafia in question enabling prosecution against it. He was promised a plea bargain. However, subsequently the Hungarian prosecution joined, despite his complaints, his own case to the one conducted against the criminals he had been reporting about. This required him to appear in court, disclose his identity and act publicly as a police informer.

Since this event resulted in all the applicants being exposed to vengeance from the Serbian mafia, the family was enrolled in the Witness Protection Scheme in October 2007 and they were given new identities. The contract on their enrolment contained a clause to the effect that if it is cancelled on account of a breach of the rules of the Scheme by the first applicant, the whole family would be excluded from the Scheme.

During an initial seven-month period, the family – but the first applicant – was lodged by the Scheme in a ‘safe flat’ where they were allegedly supplied only the most necessary commodities and could not keep contact with the first applicant. Allegedly, no adequate care was provided for X. H. who suffers from medium-grade autism. The first applicant submits that during this time, the Scheme’s operatives were insisting that the second applicant should break up their relationship.

It appears nevertheless that during a later stage of the family’s accommodation by virtue of the Scheme, the latter provided a substantial monthly allowance to the family.

The first applicant was imprisoned in an unspecified jail, where he was locked up for almost 24 hours a day and could not keep contact with anybody else than his lawyer, for about eighteen months.

On the first day of the first applicant’s trial, his mother was assaulted at her home in Serbia and the perpetrators made it clear that the assault was in connection with him being a police informer. He submits that a significant sum of blood money has been offered by the Serbian mafia for his life.

On 28 September 2010 the first applicant was sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment.

While subsequently in prison, he published three books under a pseudonym and gave interviews to the media. In February 2012 he was found to have breached the prison (and thereby the Scheme) rules by having a laptop and an internet device smuggled into the prison. When caught red-handed, he said that he had been communicating with his old cronies so as to arrange for protection of his parents, still living in Serbia.

As a sanction, the family was excluded from the Scheme on 12 April 2012. This was explained by the fact that, by communicating in an illicit way with criminal circles, the first applicant seriously breached the clauses of the contract with the Scheme. By virtue of this exposure, he became in the first place a source of danger for his family and also for the operatives of the Scheme.

The first applicant has subsequently been relocated to Sátoraljaújhely Prison where the authorities, apparently unaware of his background and previous good conduct, have treated him as a threat and his conditions have been very restricted. The family have lost their allowance, accommodation and new identities.

COMPLAINTS

  The first applicant complains under Article 5 that the joinder of his case to the one against the mafia resulted in his exposure and in mortal danger for his family.

  The first applicant also complains under Article 6 that his trial was unfair in that the courts assessed the evidence in a one-sided manner to his detriment.

  The first applicant further complains that the insistence of the Scheme’s operatives that the second applicant should leave him amounts to a breach of Article 8.

  Without relying on any particular provisions of the Convention, the first applicant complains about the restrained conditions of his detention at Sátoraljaújhely Prison which in his view is due to the fact that the prison authorities are unaware of his situation and background.

  Lastly, the applicants complain that the loss of their Scheme allowance and cover identities exposes them to neediness and to mortal danger from criminal circles.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

  Is there any change in the factual grounds which originally necessitated the protection at the time the first applicant’s family members originally enrolled in the Witness Protection Scheme?

 

  Is it reasonable to assume – and if so, on what ground – that the exclusion of the first applicant’s family members from the Witness Protection Scheme may lead to them being exposed to real danger falling within the ambit of Article 2 or 3 of the Convention?

 

  If so, what measures have been or are being put in place to protect the first applicant’s family members from the alleged threats coming from criminal circles and potentially leading to a violation of their Article 2 or Article 3 rights?

 

  Were the Article 8 rights of the children of the first applicant sufficiently taken into consideration in the course of the termination of the Witness Protection Scheme?