“Hungary is helping Jordan handle regional challenges”, the Minister of Justice emphasised in a statement to Hungarian news agency MTI on Tuesday.
László Trócsányi has been on an official visit to Jordan since Monday, during the course of which he held talks with his Jordanian counterpart, Minister of Justice Avad Masagbe. The parties agreed that the fight against terrorism can only be successful within the framework of international cooperation and through close cooperation between the states of Europe and the Middle East. Mr. Masagbe stressed that the wave of refugees caused by the civil war in Syria is affecting his country extremely seriously, with some 1.3 million Syrian refugees currently in Jordan, which is placing a huge burden on social services. According to the two justice ministers, the international community must increase its contribution to help shoulder these burdens.
Mr. Trócsányi underlined the fact that it is the fundamental obligation of the European Union and the United Nations Organisation to assist Jordan in handling the refugee situation, and in the fight against terrorism. Europe and the countries of the Middle East are mutually dependent, and true international cooperation is required to combat illegal immigration and people smuggling.
The Hungarian Justice Minister informed his negotiating partner with relation to the Hungary Helps Programme and concrete Hungarian funding projects. During the meeting, the parties also reviewed the digitalisation of the judicial system and the main elements of the judicial reforms realised in Jordan over the past two years.
Mr. Trócsányi offered his negotiating partner an inter-ministerial cooperation programme to be realised within the framework of expert visits and training courses within the fields of victim protection, legal aid, the digitalisation of the judicial system and alternative legal penalties, and invited his Jordanian counterpart to make a visit to Hungary. Mr. Masagbe highlighted the fact that the meeting represents the beginning of a new chapter in judicial cooperation between the two countries. Jordan regards it as a priority to acquire Hungary’s wide-ranging experience in the abovementioned fields, and to transpose new practices.
The Hungarian Justice Minister also met with Chairman of the Jordanian Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee Nasser Lauzi and with President of Jordan’s Constitutional Court Taher Hikmat, in addition to which he also held a lecture at the University of Jordan’s Faculty of Law. The Minister was accompanied on his trip by Pastoral President of the Synod of the Reformed Church in Hungary Bishop István Bogárdi Szabó, with whom he visited Jordan’s Christian holy sites, Mount Nebo and the Baptism Site.
During the visit, the Bishop also met with Latin Patriarch Emeritus of Jerusalem Fouad Twal.
(MTI / Ministry of Justice)
