CASE OF KÖRTVÉLYESSY v. HUNGARY
Violation of Article 11 - Freedom of assembly and association (Article 11-1 - Freedom of peaceful assembly);Non-pecuniary damage - finding of violation sufficient (Article 41 - Non-pecuniary damage;Just satisfaction)
András Sajó;Egidijus Kūris;Krzysztof Wojtyczek;Paulo Pinto De Albuquerque;Vincent A. De Gaetano;Gabriele Kucsko-Stadlmayer
5. The applicant was born in 1965 and lives in Budapest. 6. The applicant intended to organise a demonstration protesting against “the persecution of national radicalism”. It was planned to take place between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. on 15 August 2009. The venue was Venyige Street in Budapest Xth District, in front of Budapest Penitentiary. 7. Venyige Street is of a width of five metres in the Government’s submissions and of eight in the applicant’s. Parallel to the main driveway, there is a service lane, of a width equivalent to that of two cars; this area is normally used as a car park. In the applicant’s submissions, this latter section could have accommodated largely all the participants, without them creating any major traffic incident. 8. The applicant, in the notification addressed to Budapest Police Department under Act no. III of 1989 on the Right of Assembly, indicated that a maximum of 200 participants were to be expected. This notification was made at 5.40 p.m. on 12 August 2009. 9. On 14 August 2009 Budapest Police Department banned the demonstration, in pursuit of its prerogatives under section 8(1) of Act no. III of 1989. It was of the view that there was no alternative route for the traffic in the neighbourhood, and consequently the demonstration would impede traffic inordinately. The applicant was reproached with the fact that the notification did not contain the agenda for the gathering. 10. Because of this prohibition, the demonstration did not take place. 11. On 17 August 2009 the applicant requested judicial review of the police decision. He explained inter alia that he had not specified the agenda because the meeting had been intended as a rather small one and that therefore the actual course of events, such as speeches or discussion, was hard to predict. 12. On 19 August 2009 the Budapest Regional Court rejected the applicant’s complaint. It observed that the question of previous notification of the agenda was immaterial, since the only valid reason in the case was the disproportionate difficulties which would be caused to traffic by the demonstration. 13. The court relied on the expert opinion provided by the Traffic Division of Budapest Police Department, in whose view the demonstration would have significantly impeded the traffic heading to the shops located in Venyige Street, a dead end, to the local waste disposal site and to the suppliers’ entrance of Budapest Prison; and the disruption caused by the crowd might have extended to Maglódi Road, a major thoroughfare in the vicinity with lines of city transport involved. Relying on that reasoning, the court endorsed the police decision.