Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 112
October 2008
Éva Molnár v. Hungary - 10346/05
Judgment 7.10.2008 [Section II]
Article 11
Article 11-1
Freedom of peaceful assembly
Dispersal of a demonstration which had not been notified to the police and which was not justified by special circumstances warranting an immediate response:no violation
Facts: In April 2002 legislative elections took place in Hungary, as a result of which the governing coalition lost their majority. On 4 May 2002 the National Election Committee made a public statement in the Official Gazette, according to which the election results had become final. Two months later, on 4 July 2002 several hundred demonstrators started protesting against the statutory destruction of the ballots, which had been scheduled for late July. They blocked a centrally located bridge with their cars and requested a recount of the election vote. Since they caused significant traffic congestion, and had failed to give prior notification of the protest to the police, the demonstrators were dispersed after several hours. At around 1 p.m., again without any prior notification, more demonstrators gathered in front of the Parliament building demanding a recount of the votes. The applicant joined the demonstration at around 7 p.m. By that time, the police had already closed in the area off to traffic. However, at around 9 p.m. when the traffic situation had become unmanageable, the police broke up the demonstration without using force. The applicant subsequently sought judicial review of the police actions before the district court claiming that the dispersal of the demonstration was unlawful. The court dismissed his claim on the ground that the demonstration had not been notified to the police as required under domestic law.
Law: The Court reiterated at the outset that a prior-notification requirement was not as such incompatible with Article 11. For reasons of public order or national security, a Contracting State could require that the holding of meetings be subject to prior authorisation, save in special circumstances when an immediate response in the form of a spontaneous demonstration might be justified, for example, in relation to a political event. In the present case there were no special circumstances to justify an immediate demonstration since the election results had been objectively established and announced two months earlier. Moreover, Hungarian law merely required seventy-two hours prior notification rather than an authorisation. The Court further attached importance to the illegal character of the demonstration as well as the fact that it had disrupted the traffic and disturbed public order. Furthermore, it noted that unlike the position in other cases, since the demonstration had started at 1 p.m. and was dispersed at around 9 p.m., the demonstrators had been given several hours to manifest their views and the ultimate interference with the applicant’s freedom of assembly was therefore not unreasonable.
Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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