The Curia annulled the decision of the assembly authority prohibiting four organizations from holding a march on 28 June 2025 in protest against the erosion of their freedom of assembly.
The Curia had previously rejected the organizers’ legal action brought against the decision by the assembly authority to ban the march for equal rights for LGBTQI people scheduled for 28 June 2025. Subsequently, the organizers notified the authority of a march scheduled for 28 June 2025 on a route partially identical to their previous notification, with the stated purpose of protesting against the erosion of their freedom of assembly. The assembly authority did not accept the stated purpose of the assembly, classifying the previously banned assembly and Budapest Pride as precedent assemblies, and therefore prohibited the march from being held at the location and time specified in the notification, stating that it violated the fundamental right of children to the protection and care necessary for their proper physical, mental and moral development.
In their legal action, the organisers requested that the decision of the assembly authority be quashed and that the unlawful consequences of the assembly authority’s actions be remedied, citing the unfounded nature of the decision and that the latter’s findings were contrary to the case file’s content. They explained that the purpose of their assembly differed from their previously banned notifications.
In its judgement delivered on 27 June 2025, the Curia annulled the decision of the assembly authority and ordered the police to conduct new proceedings. It established that the assembly authority had not substantiated that the assembly was related to the previous or any other assembly. The assembly authority must examine not whether the organizers distance themselves from Budapest Pride or other assemblies, but whether, after consultation, it can reasonably be assumed that the assembly specified in the notification violates the prohibition set out in section 6/A of the Protection of Children Act or whether it presents the essential elements of the content prohibited therein. The Curia found that, beyond comparing the event in question with the organizers’ previous notifications and with the Budapest Pride event, the decision did not provide sufficient justification as to why the event in question violated or could violate children’s rights, and that its reasoning was contradictory and incomplete.
In the absence of the well‑foundedness of the case’s factual background, the Curia was unable to rule on the legality of the ban on the assembly, and therefore annulled the decision and ordered the police to conduct new proceedings in order to comply with its obligation to clarify the facts and provide sufficient reasoning.
The full text of the Hungarian-language version of the decision is available on the website of Curia (https://kuria-birosag.hu/hu/gyulekezesi-jogorvoslati-ugyek).
Budapest, 27 June 2025
Press and Protocol Unit of the Curia of Hungary