Pál Völner, state secretary at the justice ministry, told MTI by phone that Hungary from the very beginning had rejected the Strasbourg-based court’s first ruling that the country had violated the European Convention on Human Rights in several respects. The court levied a fine of 5.8 million forints (EUR 18,810) for each plaintiff.

“It is clear that the government is fighting against the migrant business of [US financier George] Soros’s organisations, and we have turned to the court in Strasbourg, too,” Völner said, adding that “it is also morally outrageous that they wanted to punish us because we upheld the Schengen rules.”

The government, he said, trusted the court “will realise that the ruling was brought about under the influence of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee [the Hungarian NGO filing the case], drawing partly on information and expert opinions from that organisation and maybe based on less than accurate facts”.

Inconsistency on such issues could cost Hungary billions of forints, Völner said. He said he knew of no further procedures in Hungarian courts, “although the Helsinki Committee may have filed some”.

Asked about what Hungary would do should the Grand Chamber uphold the first-instance ruling, Völner said Hungary always respected the decisions of international bodies but that did not mean the government would not propose changes to bodies “bringing their activities in line with reality and make the defence of Europe possible”.

In its non-binding ruling issued in March, the ECtHR said Hungary had violated the European Convention on Human Rights by detaining two asylum-seekers in the Röszke transit zone near Hungary’s southern border in the autumn of 2015. The authorities had later sent them back to Serbia, which the ECtHR said had put them at risk of facing inhumane treatment in Greek refugee camps.

This infringed on the asylum seekers’ right to liberty and security, the prohibition of torture and the right to an effective remedy prescribed by the European Convention on Human Rights, the court said.

Republished with permission of Hungary Matters, MTI’s daily newsletter.