Hungary will turn to the Grand Chamber on account of the decision adopted by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Bangladeshi immigrants Ilias and Ahmed versus Hungary, Pál Völner, Parliamentary State Secretary of the Justice Ministry said at the press conference held after the meeting of the Justice Committee of Parliament on 25 April 2017 in Budapest.

The State Secretary reiterated that the two immigrants stayed in the transit zone for 23 days, and then left for an unknown destination. The Helsinki Committee obtained a legal representation engagement from them in the transit zone, and after having gone through the available legal forums, they finally got to the Strasbourg court which awarded three million forints per immigrant in damages and legal costs of the amount of almost three million forints to the Helsinki Committee.

If the individuals concerned cannot be located, the amount of the damages “goes to the so-called human rights organisation” which announced in the press that they will lay a claim to this sum, Mr Völner said.

The State Secretary also pointed out that illegal immigration is a process encouraged by foreign pro-migrant organisations, and now even the Italian authorities have demonstrated that there is cooperation between the people smugglers and the “migrant organisations”.

He also said that the country is under pressure from abroad. This is testified to by the fact that György Soros has just paid a visit to Brussels where he wants to force his pro-migrant policy also on Hungary via the European Union.

The EU does not allow Hungary to behave as a sovereign state by observing the Schengen regulations and protecting the Schengen borders, he stated.

The agenda of the meeting of the Committee also featured the bill on the transparency of organisations financed from abroad, against which some twenty people demonstrated in the room, by holding up Hungarian and EU flags and signs saying “We want to have a say!” and “NGOs not to be stigmatised”. Bernadett Szél, Co-President and head of the parliamentary group of the party Lehet Más a Politika helped the demonstrators enter the Parliament Building as guests. The opposition politician told journalists: it is shocking that the Committee wanted to banish the individuals concerned from the meeting with reference to a shortage of space.

Mr Völner said in answer to a question concerning the demonstration: if the bill goes through, it will be ascertained that these organisations will sustain no legal injury of any kind as they will only be required to declare the evident fact about themselves that they receive funds from abroad.

He said: so far these organisations “have existed in the shadows and attempted to force their will upon the Government with reference to the whole of civil society”, while they seek to sell the promotion of immigration as a “philanthropic attitude”.

The organisations that came to the Committee meeting wanted to exert pressure on the Government, and exploited the fact that there are some “scrap parties which are now even willing to bring anarchists into the Parliament Building”, the State Secretary said.

(MTI)