The court’s ruling does not require the legislator to amend the rules. But the Hungarian state must pay 15,000 euros in compensation and payment of an additional 6,000 euros in legal fees once the ruling becomes final.

The court ruling rests on the European Convention on Human Rights that states under its 1st Protocol the protection of private ownership.

That clause establishes that everybody is entitled to “the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions”. Legislation approved in September 2012 established a state monopoly on the retail sale of tobacco products from July 1, 2013. The opposition accused the government of handing out tenders to people close to the ruling Fidesz party.

Economy Minister Mihály Varga said that the Hungarian government acknowledged the Strasbourg court’s ruling, as it had done in connection with past rulings, and would pay the compensation and the legal fees set by the court.

Socialist board member Károly Beke insisted that the ruling was “written proof” that Hungary’s system was corrupt. The government’s reaction to the ruling will be a “test of democracy”, Beke said. He encouraged all others with a similar complaint to file suits “out of a shared, democratic interest to demonstrate the borderlines of the rule of law to a usurious, corrupt government”.

The opposition DK said the Strasbourg court had confirmed the party position, declaring that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government had violated private ownership, something that “only the communist state powers did in Hungary in the past”.

The opposition PM said it would submit an amendment proposal to parliament to compensate people who suffered damage as a result of the law on tobacconists.

PM co-leader Tímea Szabó and foreign affairs expert Péter Szilágyi said that they would propose the payment of 15,000 euros to all former tobacconists that lost their licence.

The green opposition LMP said it would cost 80-100 billion forints to Hungarian taxpayers to pay compensation to all 20,000 people who signed a petition by former tobacconists that suffered damage as a result of the law.

Fidesz has punished not only tobacconists and convenience store owners but the whole of Hungary just for the benefit of “a favoured few”, the party’s corruption expert Ákos Hadházy said.

Source www.hungarymatters.hu

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