It infringes children’s rights and the principle of equal treatment that parents living in partnership receive less family allowance than those who are married – established Ombudsman Máté Szabó in his report in 2011. In his opinion it is a constitutional impropriety that the Act on Family Support does not regard communities functioning in the form of real familial as families when determining the rate of the allowance, because it does not allow the taking into consideration of children raised together and coming from a former partnership or marital relation.

The Minister of National Resources has argued that the legal regulation reflects a conscious choice of the State for the value of the family; this choice ensures the protection of the institution of marriage. The Ombudsman disputed this argument emphasising that the State should not support the family structure forms it finds desirable but the ones which exist in reality and the family support system should have children’s rights as its main priority.

In his second letter of refusal the Minister of National Resources maintained the previous reasoning for the distinction. According to the reasoning, partnership is an emotional-economic community which differs from marriage to a great extent concerning its content in terms of property rights, inheritance and family law, and therefore in his opinion the distinction made when establishing family allowance contributing to the child’s maintenance, education and schooling costs is not contrary to the Fundamental Law.

Source: Office of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights