Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 99
July 2007
Bukta and Others v. Hungary - 25691/04
Judgment 17.7.2007 [Section II]
Article 11
Article 11-1
Freedom of peaceful assembly
Dispersal of a peaceful demonstration for failure to give prior notice to the police: violation
Facts: Under the Right of Assembly Act 1989 the police have to be informed of an assembly at least three days beforehand and have power to disband an assembly held without prior notification. In December 2002 the Romanian Prime Minister made an official visit to Budapest and gave a reception to celebrate Romania’s national day. The previous day, the Hungarian Prime Minister had declared that he would attend the reception. The applicants believed that he should not attend an event that commemorated a negative part of Hungarian history (the annexation of Transylvania by Romania in 1918) and joined a group of approximately 150 people who had gathered in front of the hotel whilst the reception was taking place. They had not given the police any prior notice of their intention to hold the demonstration. On hearing a sound like a minor detonation, the police present at the reception forced the demonstrators to disperse. The applicants brought proceedings for a declaration that the police intervention was unlawful. These were ultimately dismissed on the grounds that the demonstration had been disbanded because of the demonstrators’ failure to give the police prior notice.
Law: The domestic courts had based their decisions exclusively on the lack of prior notice without examining other aspects of the case such as whether the demonstration was peaceful. A prior‑authorisation procedure would not normally encroach upon the essence of the right to freedom of assembly. However, the lack of advance warning of the Hungarian Prime Minister’s intention to attend the reception had left the applicants with a choice between foregoing their right to peaceful assembly or disregarding the notice requirement. In special circumstances such as these where an immediate response – in the form of a demonstration – to a political event might be justified and where there was no evidence to suggest a danger to public order, a decision to disband the ensuing, peaceful assembly solely because of the failure to comply with the notice requirement, without any illegal conduct by the participants, was disproportionate.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41 – Finding of a violation sufficient just satisfaction for any non-pecuniary damage.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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