On October 21, 2022, the CÖF-CÖKA contacted the Commissioner of Fundamental Rights regarding the fact that the kindergartens maintained by the local government in Pécel held a civil disobedience campaign, which was considered worrisome, in which all employees participated, so that all preschool education institutions in the city remained closed. 

We recorded in this regard that

the Hungarian legal system does not recognize the legal category of civil disobedience, moreover, due to its nature, it is not even a legal institution that can be connected to the world of work, but rather a tool of political expression.

We referred to the 2011 CXC on national public education. law (hereinafter: Nkt.), which specifically stipulates the requirement of worldview neutrality in state and municipal self-governing educational institutions, which kindergartens must also respect during their operation.

Our complaint also touched on the fact that the teachers' legal means of asserting their demands related to work, working conditions, and wages is Article VII of 1989 on the strike. right to strike regulated by law (hereinafter: Law).

At the same time, the right to strike cannot be exercised indefinitely:

the St. Paragraph (2) of Section 4 declares that at an employer that carries out activities that fundamentally affect the population, such as education, a strike can only be carried out if it does not prevent the performance of the "still sufficient service" stipulated in the law.

We emphasized that the requirement of sufficient service to be implemented during the work stoppage, as a legal criterion imposed by the legislator on public education institutions, guarantees the smooth operation of public education and the enforcement of children's rights stipulated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Basic Law.

The commissioner indicated that in our country, the right of children to the protection and care necessary for their proper physical, mental and moral development appears at the level of the basic law.

In view of all of this, in order to fully enforce the rights of children in the future, we asked the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights to investigate whether the criteria prescribed by law (including the requirement of still sufficient service) were fully met during the work stoppage at the kindergarten in Pécel, and if a violation of the law is detected, then take all necessary measures.

In his letter dated June 8, 2023, Ákos Kozma, the Commissioner of Fundamental Rights, informed the CÖF-CÖKA that in order to properly review the indication in our submission and to thoroughly investigate the circumstances

the case is currently being processed,

in this context, he contacted the mayor of the municipality that maintains the institution concerned. The Commissioner for Fundamental Rights wishes to provide additional information about the possible further measures and position taken as a result of the maintainer's response, which we will inform the public about in the future.

Management of CÖF-CÖKA

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