The National Assembly has adopted a package of laws designed to take stricter action against pedophile offenders and to protect children. About the legislation and the attacks on it, jr. We asked constitutional lawyer Zoltán Lomnici.
- According to the parties of the left, with the exception of Jobbik, and some NGOs, the package of child protection laws adopted last week is homophobic. Are homosexuals at a disadvantage due to the legislative change?
- First of all, it is important to state that Hungary respects the rights of minorities, including the gay communities, as it has in the past and will continue to do so in the future. The new package of child protection laws does not intend to act against sexual minorities in any form or to violate their rights and interests. The XXI. In the 20th century, it is already interesting to talk about the oppression of LGBTQ people, when mainstream media, globally dominant news channels and global corporations have all taken them under their wings. LGBTQ propaganda is beginning to go beyond the limits of emphasizing tolerance, and specifically strives to make it possible for children to experience different sexual orientations in kindergartens and schools. Minors, our children, were clearly targeted, but this is a red line where we must stop. A kind of misunderstanding of the order is starting to prevail on the liberal side, since the sexualization of children was not linked to the LGBTQ and gender issues by the anti-pedophile law, but on the contrary, the propagandizing organizations themselves began to advertise their ideology to children.
"Which is unacceptable."
– Acceptance is important, but it must be respected that there are values behind which certain needs must retreat. Our children's rights are one of them. The aforementioned law only states that sexual education at school cannot be aimed at promoting gender reassignment or homosexuality. The right to sexually educate children belongs exclusively to the parents, neither the state, nor the media, nor sensitizing NGOs can interfere. The aim is to make programs with questionable content age-restricted, to strictly control advertising and to moderate sexual education at school, not to create resentment. It is important to emphasize that the law does not apply to adults, Hungary is a free country, as an adult everyone lives as they see fit.
- So there is no question of this being a "homophobic pedophile law"?
– Staying a little further away from children's rights: homophobia is a collective term for antipathy towards homosexuals. According to the laws of common sense, it can be seen that if we don't talk about something - for a limited time and only in institutions that raise children - it is inherently unsuitable for provoking resentment, so to set this legislative demand as homophobia is to create a political mood. This debate is not about who sympathizes or does not sympathize with homosexuals, but whether it is right to promote this orientation as a social norm.
- Thanks to the legislation, a pedophile registry searchable by name will be created. Some say this is a concern for personal liberties and data security.
– The pedophile register is an acceptable and consistent legislative effort, which also complies with the EU GDPR regulation, which requires the principle of purposefulness. The register would contain the data of persons who have committed a sexual crime against children, who have been legally convicted, and who were over 18 years old at the time of the crime. The establishment of such a database was already recommended by the European Union to the attention of the member states in the directive on the sexual abuse of children in 2011, and the practice is used in about thirty countries around the world. The Hungarian database, similar to the registers found in the USA and Poland, will be public with certain restrictions. Those who, as adults, are responsible for the upbringing, supervision, and care of a child, or who are relatives of a child, will be able to search for it through their customer portal by name, and must also declare that the knowledge of the data is "presumably necessary for the purpose of preventing crimes against children." The data obtained on the interface must be treated confidentially, and may only be disclosed to third parties for the protection of the child.
– While data protection rules and freedoms are of course important, the protection of children must take priority.
"I completely agree with that." If someone commits a crime, their freedoms can be restricted to a certain extent. If rights are restricted, the first step is to check whether the given restriction is legal, necessary, proportionate or reasonable. The existence of the database is absolutely necessary and proportionate to the legitimate purpose – child protection.
- What do you think is behind the attacks?
- Recently, the opposition has been engaging in open scandal politicking, both inside and outside the parliament, with only the campaign and vote maximization in mind, subordinating everything and everyone to it. It has been seen before that the left uses minority groups as a political tool, for example in order to increase the number of people in street demonstrations with low participation. They forcefully try to polarize Hungarian society and incite conflicts between individual social groups. In this case, however, they dared to go even further, as they would sacrifice the rights of our children and the parents' right to education on the altar of the power struggle. By boycotting the vote on the law ensuring the protection of children, they openly rejected the right of parents to be educated, and at the same time pledged allegiance to the organizations that increasingly violently attempt to use children as a tool for sexual propaganda. At the moment, due to the first opening thanks to the consistent vaccination plan, the resumption of the economy, the partly domestically organized soccer European Cup and the successes of the national team, which performed well, the social mood is hopeful. This does not suit the Hungarian left, which builds its politics on opposition, so they try to incite conflicts by all means.
"By all means?" Does the child fit?
– The question is when will their political conscience speak, if at all. It is a fact, however, that it was not expected that the protection of children would encounter such strong opposition from the left. All in all, the left-wing uproar over the law is once again nothing more than a balloon inflated by professional means.
- What do you consider to be the most important elements of the legislation?
- The anti-pedophile law protects children, whose sexual education is solely the responsibility of the parents. In the era of modern mass communication, parental and legal control is particularly important. A minor child does not yet have the knowledge and experience to responsibly distinguish between good and bad, normal and abnormal. In this case, it is a package consisting of several elements, amending several different laws, part of which includes, among others, the Civil Code. tightening, increasing the penalties, rewriting the statute of limitations in favor of the victims. The legislation has two very important parts: on the one hand, it protects our children from pedophile criminals, and on the other hand, it declares the parents' right to education, which must be respected by the state, schools, and NGOs. The law regulates that minors should generally not or only have limited access to sexual content. An important guarantee rule is the eighteen-year age limit set by law: children must be protected from these contents until they reach adulthood, and everyone over the age of eighteen must be given the opportunity to freely decide how to live their life. This provision is also very important from a legal point of view, because it makes it clear what the primary purpose of the legislation is, and at the same time it clarifies the groundlessness of the charge of homophobia.
- According to the supporters of the law, the amendment does not take away rights, but rather gives them, since, as you have emphasized several times, it ensures the parent's right to be the only one to decide on the sexual education of their child.
- It is important to state that the state has a child protection obligation arising from the Basic Law and other international legal sources. In addition, our constitution also states that parents have the right to choose the education to be given to their children. XVI of the Basic Law. according to article "every child has the right to the protection and care necessary for his proper physical, mental and moral development. Hungary protects children's right to self-identity according to their birth sex, and ensures education according to the value system based on our country's constitutional self-identity and Christian culture". Thus, the child protection orders contained in the Basic Law are transmitted to the anti-pedophile law, emphasizing the rights of parents even more strongly. Many people have experienced that the currently dominant LGBTQ lobby no longer informs, but instead pursues violent propaganda aimed at domination. Parents are solely responsible and responsible for their child's gender identity and education, and no institution can take over this. The right of control in this important and extremely sensitive topic should not be taken out of the hands of the parents. There is no scientific consensus regarding the development of homosexuality; the topic is surrounded by so many question marks. The LGBTQ lobby, on the other hand, demands that parents do not have the right to have a say in what kind of narrative can appear in these sensitizing classes in schools. However, this is intolerable and unacceptable.
In our opening photo, constitutional lawyer Dr. Zoltán Lomnici Jr. is the spokesperson of CÖF-CÖKA
Photo: György T. Szántó/Demokrata
