In its decision published on 6 October, the Constitutional Court established that the legal rules which regulate the status and procedures of the Government Control Office are in harmony with the Fundamental Law, the Prime Minister’s Office informed the Hungarian News Agency MTI on Thursday.

According to the information provided, in the wake of the decision of the Constitutional Court, the view of the consortium led by the Ökotárs Foundation – based on which the Government Control Office established sanctions against them in an unlawful procedure and on the basis of unlawfully required documents – has been refuted definitively.

“The supreme agency established for the protection of the Fundamental Law, too, has made it clear now: the legal rules relating to the Government Control Office, and therefore the investigations conducted by the Government Control Office on the basis of those legal rules conform to the relevant constitutional requirements”, they pointed out.

The Prime Minister’s Office reiterated that the consortium in charge of the Norway Grants Fund which decided on the distribution of public funds worth billions of forints, the Ökotárs Foundation and its co-organisations, failed to deliver to the Government Control Office a number of documents necessary for the investigation conducted by the Government Control Office in 2014.

As a result, the Office initiated the suspension of the organisations’ tax numbers.

Following this, in a lawsuit instituted by one of the non-governmental organisations operating the Norway Grants Fund, the Carpathians Foundation – Hungary, the judge of the Eger Public Administration and Labour Court initiated in May the annulment of the legal rules relating to the status and procedures of the Government Control Office because they are, in the judge’s opinion, contrary to the Fundamental Law.

(Prime Minister's Office/MTI)