Govt studying Strasbourg ruling on church law

Budapest, April 9 (MTI) – The government is still studying the ruling by the Strasbourg court of human rights on Hungary’s church law, a senior government official said today.

Bence Retvari, state secretary for justice and public administration, told public television m1 that Tuesday’s decision was not final and Hungary still had recourse to appeal to the court’s grand chamber. He noted that the European Court of Human Rights is not the court of the European Union but operated under the auspices of the Council of Europe, which cannot oblige countries to change their laws.

He said the law had been amended in the meantime, and it was possible that the current ruling was not relevant.

Retvari said the aim of Hungary’s church law was to filter out “business churches”.

He noted that the Council of Europe’s other institution, the Venice Commission, had described the current law as allowing an exceptionally broad and liberal scope in terms of freedom of religion.