BAKOS AND OTHERS v. HUNGARY (European Court of Human Rights)

Last Updated on April 24, 2019 by LawEuro

FOURTH SECTION

DECISION

Application no.12436/18
János BAKOS and Laszlo UZSOKI against Hungary
and 2 other applications
(see list appended)

The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 8 January 2019 as a Committee composed of:

Faris Vehabović, President,
          Carlo Ranzoni,
          Péter Paczolay, judges,
and Andrea Tamietti, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above applications lodged on the various dates indicated in the appended table,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

1. A list of the applicants is set out in the appendix.
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.
3. The applicants, public officials, were charged with having passed language exams by way of bribery and of having received extra pay for language competences from their employers.
4. At last, the public prosecutor suspended their indictments (vádemelés elhalasztása) for two years, at the end of which period the cases were to be discontinued if the applicants committed no further offences in the meantime.
5. The applicants did not appeal against the decisions of the public prosecutor. Notably, they did not dispute the findings contained therein which described the offences attributed to them.
6. Subsequently, the applicants’ employers carried out examinations to see if their conduct as public officials met the requirement of irreproachability. They found that it did not, which was represented by the fact that they had not appealed against the public prosecutor’s decisions and the findings concerning the bribery committed by them. On this ground, the applicants were dismissed from service.
7. The applicants initiated labour lawsuits against their employers, challenging their termination as consequence of the above disciplinary proceedings. The first and second instance courts dismissed their actions on various dates in 2017.
8. 8.  The applicants did not submit petitions for review to the Kúria.

COMPLAINTS

9. The applicants complained under Articles 6 §§ 1 and 2, 8, 13, 14 and 17 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 12 about their dismissal from service.

THE LAW

10. Given the similarity of the applications, the Court decides to order their joinder in accordance with Rule 42 § 1 of the Rules of Court.
11. The Court recalls that a petition for review before the Kúria is normally a remedy to be exhausted in civil litigations (see INDEX.HU ZRT v. Hungary (dec.), no. 57005/09, 2 February 2010). As the applicants did not avail themselves of this remedy (see paragraph 8 above), their complaints under Articles 6 §§ 1 and 2, 8, 13, 14 and 17 of the Convention must be rejected for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.
12. Moreover, Hungary has not ratified Protocol No. 12 to the Convention. This complaint is therefore incompatible ratione personae with the provisions of the Convention, within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) and must be rejected, pursuant to Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Decides to join the applications;

Declares the applications inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 31 January 2019.

Andrea Tamietti                                                 Faris Vehabović
Deputy Registrar                                                      President

 

APPENDIX

No.	Application no.	Lodged on	Applicant Date of birth Place of residence Nationality	Represented by
1.	12436/18	02/03/2018	János BAKOS 27/03/1975 Budapest Hungarian   László UZSOKI 02/01/1979 Nagykálló Hungarian	Attila István MOLNÁR
2.	21426/18	23/04/2018	Dániel KOVÁCS 08/06/1983 Nyíregyháza Hungarian	Csaba MESTER
3.	21952/18	23/04/2018	József PAPP 14/10/1982 Nyíregyháza Hungarian	Csaba MESTER