Hungarian authorities not investigating border incidents properly, EU Fundamental Rights Agency says

Based on judgments of the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights, the authorities of three EU member states, one of which is Hungary, are failing to investigate cases of ill-treatment and deaths of people crossing their borders, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) has found. The agency's report states that the European Court of Human Rights recently found shortcomings in five such cases. (The latter is not an agency of the EU, but all EU member states have committed to adhere to its founding document.) The cases mentioned are related to Hungary, Greece and Croatia. In one case, a Syrian refugee drowned at the Serbian-Hungarian border, and in another case there were complaints of inhumane treatment at the hands of Hungarian police.

For the report, the EU agency carried out a detailed investigation in 14 countries and requested information from two member states. According to the document, the Hungarian authorities, unlike several other Member States, responded to the FRA's inquiries. There were 17 investigations reported, with only one member state, Greece, having had more than that (almost half of the cases, 52 came from this country).

Of the 50 closed cases, "at least three" resulted in convictions, and two of these occurred in Hungary, which had the second fastest case handling time of all the countries surveyed, at 54 days. Both Hungary and Croatia had the highest number of disciplinary procedures (four each) carried out, although in Hungary this only involves a reprimand or a prohibition of promotion for two years. The report also notes that Hungarian police officers make video recordings as a precaution against allegations of abuse.