Hungary’s supreme court has struck down police ban on Budapest Pride march

Hungary’s supreme court, the Kúria, on Friday said it has struck down a police order that had banned an upcoming march organised by four groups in protest against what they say is a violation of their freedom of assembly.

The Kúria said in a statement that because it had been unable to rule on the legality of the ban on the June 28 gathering due to an absence of substantiated facts, it had annulled the assembly authority’s order and ordered it to carry out a new procedure in which it fulfilled its obligation to provide a statement of the facts of the case as well as a justification.

The court noted that it had recently rejected the organisers’ challenge of a police decision to ban a march for the equality of LGBTQ people. The organisers later announced a parade for the same day that was set to cover the same route in protest against what they say is a violation of their freedom of assembly.

Arguing that the parade that had previously been banned and Budapest Pride were “precedent assemblies”, the authorities rejected the stated purpose of the event and banned it on the grounds that it was in violation of children’s fundamental right related to the protection of their bodily, spiritual and moral development.

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The organisers then turned to the Kúria, asking that it annul the police ban, as its purpose differed from those of the previously banned events.

The Kúria annulled the police ban

The Kúria annulled the police ban and ordered a new procedure, saying the authorities had failed to provide substantial reasoning as to why the march was linked to any other march. It said the authorities had to determine whether it could be reasonably assumed that the march in question violated the ban set out in Hungary’s child protection law.

The court also ruled that the police ban did not contain sufficient justification as to why the event could violate children’s rights, and the justification it had provided was “contradictory and incomplete”.

Mayor Gergely Karácsony wrote in a post shared on Facebook that nobody could ban freedom and love. Therefore, every participant is welcome on tomorrow’s march.