Szabó and Vissy v. Hungary

Application No. 37138/14 (2016)

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Szabó and Vissy v. Hungary

European Court of Human Rights
Application No. 37138/14 (2016)

Facts

A Hungarian law allowed a special antiterrorism unit of Hungary’s police force (the TEK) to conduct secret intelligence operations without the subject’s consent, including searching peoples’ houses, surveilling and recording people, opening people’s mail and packages, and checking and recording people’s electronic communications. The law required the TEK to identify a “range of persons” to be surveilled but did not require the TEK to demonstrate any actual or perceived relationship between the subject of the intelligence-gathering and the prevention of a terrorist threat. As a result, the TEK essentially could conduct unlimited mass surveillance. Maté Szabó and Beatrix Vissy (plaintiffs), two employees of a nongovernmental watchdog organization, brought an application against the Hungarian government (defendant) in the European Court of Human Rights. Szabó and Vissy claimed that the Hungarian surveillance framework abused the personal-privacy rights guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the convention).

Rule of Law

Issue

Holding and Reasoning ()

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