Hungary

 

Conscription:

No

Abolished in 2005 in peacetime by amendment of the Constitution. Can be reinstituted in times of emergency.

Conscientious objection:

1989

First recognised in Constitution, Art. 70.

Service

 

Military:

-

 

Civilian:

-

 

Minimum

 

Conscription:

-

No conscription

Voluntary enlistment:

18

 

More

https://ebco-beoc.org/hungary including the reply of the Office of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights of Hungary to the Questionnaire about EBCO’s Annual Report 2022 (e-mail on 10/02/2023).

According to the reply of the IFOR Hungarian affiliate BOCS Global Think Tank Foundation about EBCO’s Annual Report 2021 (e-mail on 24/01/2022):

The nullification law after the 1990 regime change left out conscientious objectors, so they are still not rehabilitated. For example, time spent in prison does not count as pensionable service for them. Now that hundreds of Hungarian conscientious objectors are all pensioners or approaching retirement age, it is time to stand up against the ongoing discrimination formerly imprisoned conscientious objectors are exposed to by cutting their retirement benefits. BOCS Global Think Tank Foundation is working for rehabilitation through both political lobbying and legal action, see https://bocs.eu/co-rehabilitacio.

In this context it might be good to take note of a legal development to be observed in Slovakia: Jehovah's Witness (and CO) Imrich Vajda had been sentenced under the Communist Regime in 1959 and 1961. After the ECtHR Bayatyan Judgement the Constitutional Court of Slovakia acknowledged on 13 March 2014 that amnesty or restitution is a necessary legal measure for those convicted as criminals for conscientious objection to military service. Until 2018, 51 of Jehovah’s Witnesses—most of whom were sentenced from 1948 to 1989—have been completely exonerated by Slovakian courts. Since May 2017, the Supreme Court of the Czechia, too, annulled the verdicts for 45 Jehovah's Witnesses who refused to perform military service during the Communist regime and were convicted and sentenced. [1] [2]

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