5.  The first applicant was born in 1971 and lives in Devecser. The second applicant was born in 1979 and lives in Ajka. The applicants are of Roma origin.
6.   Mr G.F., a Member of Parliament from the right-wing Movement for a Better Hungary Party (Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom Párt, hereinafter referred to as Jobbik), announced that a demonstration would take place on 5 August 2012 in Devecser under the slogan “Live and let live”. The reason for the demonstration was that riots had broken out between Roma and non-Roma families of the municipality on 25 July 2012. Following that incident, seventeen people were questioned by the police, and an enhanced police presence was ordered in the municipality, with the constant surveillance of streets inhabited by the Roma community.
7.  In the applicants’ submission, the police were aware that the presence of a hostile crowd in the municipality could lead to violent acts. The police had been informed through official sources that in addition to the members of Jobbik, nine far-right groups, known for their militant behaviour and anti-Roma and racist stance, would also be present at the demonstration. They had also been informed that the demonstrators would seek conflict with the police and the minority community. According to the far-right organisations’ websites, the demonstration was aimed “against Roma criminality”, “against the Roma of Devecser beating up Hungarians” and “against the Roma criminals unable to respect the rules of living together”.
8.  Devecser was classified as special zone of risk, (kiemelten veszélyeztetett) and eight police patrol units were dispatched to the municipality to ensure an increased presence and carry out checks as of 1 August 2012. About 200 police officers were deployed in Devecser to secure the demonstration, including members of the Operational Squad. On the day of the demonstration checks were increased throughout the county, including traffic check points. The Veszprém county police department also asked members of the Ethnic Roma Self-Government of Veszprém county to inform the Roma population about the upcoming demonstration.
9.  About 400 to 500 people were present at the demonstration. Mr G.F. announced that the demonstration was about the justified self-protection of Hungarians. Invoking the crimes committed by members of the Roma community, he demanded the reintroduction of the death penalty and threatened the Roma community that if the criminality continued, Jobbik would return to Devecser. He also announced that the Roma were not “normal”.
10.  In his speech, Mr L.T., leader of the Sixty-four Counties Youth Movement (Hatvannégy Vármegye Ifjúsági Mozgalom), mentioned that Roma criminality was omnipresent in the country and wherever this ethnic group appeared, only destruction, devastation and fear came. In his opinion the Roma population wanted to exterminate Hungarians, which left the latter with the choice of becoming victims or fighting back. Mr A.L., leader of the Civil Guard Association for a Better Future (Szebb Jövőért Polgárőr Egyesület) stated that hundreds of Hungarians were killed yearly by the Roma with the approval of the State. In his view there was a destruction of civilians going on in Hungary. He called on the demonstrators to sweep out the “rubbish” from the country, to revolt and to chase out the treasonous criminal group supressing Hungarians. He closed his speech by saying that the Hungarians were entitled to use all means to achieve those goals. Mr Zs.Ty., leader of the Outlaws’ Army (Betyársereg), spoke about the characteristics of a racial war and an ethnic-based conflict. He said that before such conflict escalated, a message should be sent. He mentioned that the Roma minority was genetically encoded to behave in a criminal way and declared that the only way to deal with the Roma was by applying force to “stamp out this phenomenon that needs to be purged”. Mr I.M., the leader of the New Guard (Új Gárda), called on the Government to end Roma criminality and warned that if Hungarians ran out of patience, there would be trouble. Finally, Mr I.O., the vice-president of Jobbik in Veszprém county, told participants that there would be no mercy and that every criminal act and every prank would be revenged; if the State authorities did not live up to their obligations to protect civilians from Roma criminality, this would be done by the population itself.
11.  Following the speeches, the demonstrators marched down Vásárhelyi Street, the neighbourhood of Devecser inhabited by the Roma community, chanting “Roma criminality”, “Roma, you will die”, and “We will burn your house down and you will die inside”, “We will come back when the police are gone”, and obscene insults. They also called on the police not to protect the Roma residents from the demonstrators and to let them out from their houses. Sporadically, quasi‑military demonstrations of force occurred, involving military-style uniforms, formations, commands and salutes.
12.  Certain demonstrators covered their faces, dismantled the cordon and were equipped with sticks and whips. Those leading the demonstration threw pieces of concrete, stones and plastic bottles into the gardens, encouraged by the crowd following them.
13.   The Government and the applicants disagreed as to other aspects of the demonstration.
14.  During the march through the Roma neighbourhood, which lasted approximately thirty minutes, both applicants stayed in the gardens of houses in Vásárhelyi Street. The first applicant submitted that he had overheard the police stating on their radio that the demonstrators were armed with sticks, stones, whips and metal pipes. Furthermore, one of his acquaintances had been injured by a stone thrown into his garden, but the police officer to whom the applicant had reported the incident had not taken any steps. In the second applicant’s submission, two of the demonstrators leading the march had had a list and had pointed out to the crowd the houses that were inhabited by Roma people.
15.  According to the applicants, the police were present during the demonstration but remained passive and did not disperse the demonstration; nor did they take any steps to establish the criminal responsibility of the demonstrators. The report of the police’s contact officer noted that the organiser of the demonstrations, Mr G.F. had not been able to keep the events under control and had been unwilling to confront the participants.
16.  According to the Government, the commander of the security forces immediately took action when the participants started to act violently, managed the crowd appropriately and separated hostile demonstrators from others.
17.  On 21 September 2012 the Minister of the Interior, reacting to a letter from civil society organisations, informed the public that the conduct of the police had been adequate and that forty people, including five demonstrators, had been questioned by the police. Following a statement from two injured persons, the police opened criminal proceedings against unknown perpetrators on charges of “disorderly conduct” (garázdaság), which was subsequently amended to “violence against a member of a group” (közösség tagja elleni erőszak). It appears from the case file that a further criminal investigation was opened into charges of “violence against a member of a group” several months after the incident.
18.  In November 2012 the Office of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights published a report on the events. The report concluded that the police had failed to assess whether the event had infringed the rights and freedoms of others. Such assessment would have led to the conclusion that the people living in the neighbourhood were forced as a “captive audience” to listen to the injurious statements that had been made. According to the report, the demonstration had been used to incite ethnic tensions on the basis of the collective guilt of the ethnic group. It went on to state that by not enforcing the limits of freedom of assembly, the police had caused anomalies in respect of the right to peaceful assembly and the Roma population’s right to dignity and private life. It also pointed out that certain speeches had been capable of inciting hatred, evidenced by the fact that stones had been thrown at Roma houses following the speeches. The Commissioner found it regretful that the police had failed to identify the perpetrators on the spot, which was inconsistent with their task of preventing and investigating crimes and with the right to dignity, non-discrimination and physical integrity.
19.  Both applicants complained to the Veszprém county police department about the failure of the police to take measures against the demonstrators, thereby endangering their life and limb and their human dignity.
20.  On 22 November 2012 the police department dismissed the applicants’ complaint, finding that the conditions for dispersal of the demonstration had not been met, since any illegal or disorderly conduct on the part of the demonstrators had ceased within ten minutes. The police department held that the demonstration had remained peaceful, since, apart from the throwing of stones, no actual conflict had broken out between the police, the demonstrators and members of the Roma minority. It also found that only a small group of demonstrators had been armed with sticks and whips. As regards the failure of the police to carry out identity checks on demonstrators and to hold suspects for questioning (előállítás), the police department found that such measures would only have aggravated the situation and strengthened the demonstrators’ hostility towards the police.
21.  On appeal, the National Police Service upheld the first-instance administrative decision. Following a request for judicial review lodged by the applicants, it nonetheless overruled the first-instance decision and remitted the case to the county police department.
22.  By its decisions of 29 October 2013 and 25 June 2014 the Veszprém county police department dismissed both applicants’ complaints again on identical grounds. The police department found that the demonstration had remained essentially peaceful, because the majority of the participants had not aligned themselves with those committing violent acts. The police department observed that there had been grounds to disperse the demonstration, since some participants had been armed and there had been a reasonable suspicion that some of them had committed the criminal offence of violence against a member of a group. Nonetheless, it concluded that dispersing the demonstration would have carried a high risk since, based on previous experience, those participants intent on violence would probably have turned against the police.
23.  The National Police Service upheld those decisions on appeal on 19 December 2013 and 5 August 2014, respectively, stating that although under section 14 of Act no. III of 1989 (“the Freedom of Assembly Act”) the police had been under an obligation to disperse the demonstration, they could refrain from such action if it carried a higher risk than allowing the demonstration to continue. Furthermore, the commander of the operation had been right not to apply measures against certain individuals, since that would have led to a clash between the demonstrators and the police, endangering not only the police themselves, but the local residents too. The second-instance authority acknowledged that the unlawful acts of certain demonstrators had infringed the fundamental rights of the applicants, but concluded that seeking to protect those rights would have caused more harm than good.
24.  The applicants sought judicial review of those decisions, arguing that under section 14 of the Freedom of Assembly Act the police were under an obligation to disperse non-peaceful demonstrations irrespective of the proportionality of such a measure.
25.  In its judgments delivered on 3 December 2014 and 19 March 2015 the Veszprém Administrative and Labour Court dismissed the applicants’ claims. It found that although the non-peaceful character of a demonstration could serve as grounds for its dispersal, this was only so if the demonstration as a whole had ceased to be peaceful. Sporadic acts of violence, as in the present case, could not serve as legitimate grounds for dispersal. The court also considered that the police had a margin of discretion when deciding on the dispersal of a demonstration. As regards the applicants’ claim that the police should have taken law-enforcement measures against certain individuals, the court pointed out that such actions would have led to clashes between the demonstrators and the police. The court therefore concluded that even if there had been grounds to terminate the demonstration or to apply law-enforcement measures against certain individuals, the police had been justified in not having done so. It added that, in any event, the potential infringement of the applicants’ fundamental rights had been caused not by the alleged inactivity of the police, but by the conduct of the demonstrators.
26.  The applicants lodged a petition for review with the Kúria. In its judgments of 23 September 2015 and 6 January 2016 the Kúria reiterated that under the Freedom of Assembly Act no. III of 1989 the dispersal of demonstrations was a possibility rather than an obligation for the police and restrictions on the fundamental rights of others did not in themselves justify the restriction of the right of assembly. Furthermore, dispersal could only be used as a last resort, if the demonstration was likely to entail serious consequences. Relying on the report by the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights, the Kúria considered that despite certain violent actions, the demonstration had on the whole remained peaceful. The court went on to find that the police had been under an obligation to respect the principle of proportionality and had been right to conclude that dispersing the march could have caused more serious prejudice to the Roma community than allowing the demonstration to continue in a controlled manner.
As regards the lack of individual measures, the Kúria found that an operational unit of the police (csapaterő) had been deployed to maintain order, and that such a measure had not allowed for police officers to single out and act against individual demonstrators.
The Kúria also rejected the applicants’ argument that the police had done nothing to protect them and other members of the Roma minority. It found it established that the police had used a cordon to contain the demonstrators and had ensured the subsequent prosecution of perpetrators by logging events, and taking video footage and photographs.
27.  The applicants, together with the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, lodged a criminal complaint concerning the speeches delivered at the demonstration and the attacks to which the Roma community had been subjected. The case was subsequently joined to a criminal complaint lodged by third persons concerning the same issue. On 22 November 2012 the Veszprém county police department opened an investigation into charges of violence against members of a group under Article 174/B of the Criminal Code. The police department opened a separate investigation, under Article 269 point (b) of the Criminal Code (incitement against a group), into the issue of the speeches delivered during the demonstration.
28.  The investigation into incitement against a group was discontinued by the police department on 24 September 2013. The police department considered that although the content of the speeches had been injurious to the Roma minority and was morally reprehensible, it could not be classified as a crime. In particular, the speeches had not been meant to trigger unconsidered, instinctive, harmful and hostile reactions. By the same decision, the police department informed the applicants that it had asked the prosecutor’s office to press charges against an individual for violence against member of a group.
29.  Following a complaint lodged by the applicants, the Veszprém County Prosecution Office upheld the decision to discontinue the investigation. It held that the legally protected interest in the criminalisation of incitement against a group was public morale. Thus the applicants were not victims of the alleged criminal act and had no standing to lodge a complaint against the decision to discontinue the investigation. However, the county prosecution office re-examined the decision on its own motion. It held that the speeches delivered in Devecser contained abusive, demeaning statements concerning the Roma minority and might have contained statements that evoked hatred, but that they had not provoked active hatred and had not called on the audience to take violent action against the local Roma.
30.  As regards the investigation into the offence of violence against a member of a group, the police established that four persons had taken part in violent acts, in particular the throwing of stones. Three of the alleged perpetrators could not be identified, while the Veszprém County Prosecutor’s Office pressed charges against the fourth person, Mr T.K. He was found guilty as charged on 2 June 2015 by the Ajka District Court and sentenced to ten months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years. On appeal the Veszprém High Court upheld Mr T.K.’s conviction but amended his sentence to one year and three months’ imprisonment, suspended for three years.
31.  The applicants, together with a third person, also lodged a criminal complaint against unknown perpetrators for breach of discipline in the line of duty, under Article 438 of the Criminal Code. Those proceedings were discontinued on 17 October 2012 by a decision of the Central Investigation Office of the Public Prosecutor, which held that the criminal offence could only be committed by soldiers in military service, but not by police officers.