The investigation primarily focused on how this huge divided organisation which is of particular importance for adherence to fundamental rights can become tolerant and capable of accepting minorities and otherness and of protecting minority rights effectively, and how it is possible to consistently improve the administrative culture and communications both with the public and within the organisation. The reason for the ex officio investigation was the high latency of unlawful police procedures and conduct, and the known circumstance that the police force is almost homogenous, differing significantly from the socio-demographic composition of society. The aim could not be to fully investigate the operation of the individual police bodies concerning taking into custody, summary offences and detention, but merely to summarise our experiences at the given sites we visited. The authority tasks of the police and the nature of the police profession require that policy-makers, the police leadership, government and civil monitoring bodies and those judging complaints take into account prejudices established at different times and with different methods. The investigation of the minorities commissioner therefore was directed at confronting critical-level prejudices, reducing these, and the presence of institutional safeguards to prevent these.
The investigation focused on respect for human dignity, equal treatment, and language use rights of the national and ethnic minorities, primarily in connection with police practices regarding summary offences, identity checks, taking into custody, opening hours, dealing with complaints and detention. The ombudsman also inquired whether the joint declaration promulgating the Ethical Codex of the Police of the Hungarian Republic plays a role in procedures against police officers and performance assessments.
Although the investigation focused on general safeguards concerning minorities, the ombudsman largely looked at fundamental rights violations affecting Roma citizens as many cases presented in the media, and conflict situations exposed in the course of the investigation are connected to the stereotypes afflicting Gypsies. The ombudsman's findings therefore largely focus on the potential and actual victims of non-equal treatment.
In the framework of the investigation on-site investigations were carried out in the central cells of the Budapest Police Headquarters, the cells of the National Investigation Office, several Budapest district police stations, city police stations and county police headquarters. During the investigation the ombudsman requested the human resources and communications plans of the police bodies, Roma scholarship announcements, cooperation agreements signed with Gypsy minority self-governments, and equal opportunities plans. We made use of the relevant statistical figures, the recommendations following investigations in Hungary made by the CPT, the police research results of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, and the received complaints.
In the past ten years relations between the police and the Gypsy organisations entered the organisational and operational code, and the internal work structure of the police. At the same time the main field of cooperation became implementation of the national crime prevention strategy. This resulted in serious one-sidedness, and agreements with the Gypsy minority self-governments led largely to formal and fairly superficial dialogue with the crime prevention departments.
There are no unified rules for police opening hours. There is no detailed legislative provision for the circumstances of taking into custody. The physical circumstances of detention and the staffing situation - with the exception of Budapest - have improved significantly. However the state of cells examined in Budapest and the situation of staff travelling from outside the capital and working in poor circumstances give cause for serious concern in terms of fundamental rights. It is typical that despite the recommendations of the CPT and the Helsinki Committee there is still not a possibility everywhere of being seen by an external doctor, and there is no external healthcare supervision with general powers above these institutions so access to medial care and the possibility of fair investigation of certain legal disputes may be violated. There are problems concerning the preparedness of the prison staff as well.
It is also an important requirement for clients to be informed of their rights in detail in relation to the given situation. The main elements of this need to be appropriately documented. The CPT also recommended that all clients should receive written information, where necessary in a foreign language too. We also recommend that the 36/2008. (OT 19.) ORFK instruction on dealing with complaints be made more precise in line with the above.
It is particularly important for the legal basis and documentation of identity checks and taking into custody to be checked regularly by police commanders. The overburden on summary offences officials needs to be reduced, and regular professional further training should be provided. The updating of the summary offences statistics cannot be delayed further.
Ethnic profiling continues to be used by police officers on patrol. A significantly higher proportion of Roma citizens - in particular men, on foot, aged between 14 and 39 - have their identity checked than would be expected based on the proportion of Roma citizens within the population. This practice of identity checks and profiling poses the risk of negative discrimination and it can also be criticised in terms of effectiveness.
The number of those detained who wish to make use of the possibility provided by the Minorities Act to use a minority language is very low; police employees' knowledge of these regulations is far from complete.
The police as an institution needs to take part in the fight against discrimination, through developing and implementing a substantial HR, career and training plan against gender and racial stereotypes in terms of admissions to the police force and promotion. More women and Roma staff should be recruited by the police, particularly as public servants.
High level communications skills need to be required as part of the skills of police leaders, and regular relations with the press at a certain leadership level needs to be ensured. The structured improvement of recruitment (partly from outside), selection and training of those responsible for the police's external communications (spokespeople) is even more important than standard police communications.
The ombudsman sent his recommendations relating to the report on necessary measures and legal amendments to the National Police Commander, the Minister of Justice and Law Enforcement and to the Prime Minister.
The national police commander was extremely accepting of the recommendations, since he agreed with almost every recommendation and indicated in his response that implementation of most of these has already got underway, or is planned in the near future. The police chief, however, rejected the proposal of the ombudsman concerning the selection and training of staff and spokespeople of ethnic background and did not react substantially to the introduction of attitude checks to filter out (potential) staff with extremist, racist views in terms of recruiting police staff.
In view of the above, the Minorites Ombudsman continues to support the recommendations, noting that he is willing to make all possible efforts for their implementation. Recognising the problems uncovered by the investigation, he wishes to further investigate irregularities concerning the statistics of ethnic-based crimes and administration, and the operational rules for police vocational and higher education law enforcement training in terms of the content of the training and socialisation patterns.
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