European Court of Human Rights

SECOND SECTION

DECISION

Application nos. 24515/09, 24539/09 and 24611/09
Krisztina NOÉ, Attila VAJNAI and András Attila BAKÓ
against Hungary

The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 13 March 2012 as a Chamber composed of:

Françoise Tulkens, President,
Danutė Jočienė,
Dragoljub Popović,
Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre,
András Sajó,
Işıl Karakaş,
Guido Raimondi, judges,
and Stanley Naismith, Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above applications lodged on 5 May 2009,

Having regard to the decisions of 10 January 2012 declaring the cases inadmissible,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicants, Ms Krisztina Noé, Mr Attila Vajnai and Mr András Attila Bakó, are Hungarian nationals who were born in 1970, 1963 and 1989 and live in Paks and Budapest respectively. They are represented before the Court by Mr G. Magyar, a lawyer practising in Budapest.

A.  The circumstances of the case

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

On 21 December 2008 the applicants, left-wing activists, participated in a demonstration and displayed red stars, a political symbol prohibited under Hungarian criminal law. At about 4 p.m. they were committed to the Budapest VI District Police Department as suspects of an offence, where they were interrogated and then released at about 10 p.m.

They applicants complained to the Independent Police Complaint Board. It found that no irregularity had taken place and transferred their complaint to the Head of Budapest VI District Police Department. This authority dismissed their complaint. The National Police Command dismissed their administrative appeal on 17 November 2009.

The applicants challenged these decisions in court.

On 29 June 2010 the Budapest Regional Court dismissed their action.

On 27 June 2011 the Supreme Court dismissed their petition for review, holding in essence that a proper scrutiny – as required by the Court’s judgment in the case of Vajnai v. Hungary (no. 33629/06, ECHR 2008–) – of the applicants’ real intentions in using the utilitarian symbol could only be carried out in the framework of criminal proceedings, and not by the police officers proceeding on the scene. Since the latter had acted in pursuit of a prohibition contained in the Criminal Code, their intervention had been lawful in that it had corresponded to a prima facie criminal offence.

COMPLAINT

The applicants complain that the police’s intervention amounted to an unjustified interference with their Article 10 rights, in view of the Vajnai v. Hungary judgment (no. 33629/06, ECHR 2008).

THE LAW

On 10 January 2012 the Court, acting as a Single Judge, declared the applications inadmissible for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies. However, upon a complaint from the applicants’ lawyer, it has been revealed that this decision was based on the misfiling of certain documents. Therefore, the Court considers that the applications should be restored to the list of cases and joined, since the applicants suffered identical alleged grievances in the same proceedings.

The Court further considers that it cannot, on the basis of the case-file, determine the admissibility of the complaint and that it is therefore necessary, in accordance with Rule 54 § 3 (b) of the Rules of Court, to give notice of the applications to the respondent Government.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Decides to re-open the applications and to join them;

Decides to adjourn the examination of the applications.

Stanley Naismith Françoise Tulkens
Registrar President