I wonder if Brussels has considered making other crimes related to prostitution an authorized activity.
The Minister of Justice reported on Thursday that other crimes related to prostitution have been considered in Brussels as an authorized activity and the establishment of prisons. The constitutional lawyer of Századvég pointed out: the decriminalization of prostitution is a controversial issue, because it does not matter whether it affects only prostituted persons or "entrepreneurs" active in the sex industry. The Hungarian government does not support this EU proposal.
Justice Minister Bence Tuzson recently reported at a press conference that at the informal meeting of EU justice ministers in Brussels, proposals were made to help certain forms of prostitution. The minister announced:
for now, there is no EU regulation, and we ourselves do not want it to become a European Union regulation.
According to his words, since in Hungary it is a crime to promote business-like lust, he cannot support the proposal that this activity should not be a crime, but should even be a permitted activity. According to some claims, organized crime could be stopped more easily if promoting and organizing prostitution were a legal activity. However, we strongly reject this approach, he stated.
In the recent period, sexual crimes of considerable gravity, especially those committed against minors and children, have come to light, which have caused outrage among the population.
- pointed out the legal expert of Századvég. According to Zoltán Lomnici Jr., people rightly expect more effective legislative changes from the legislator in Brussels as well in the case of these crimes. He believes that human trafficking along migration routes is also an important issue from the point of view of prostitution, and
In some states of Western Europe, migrant prostitution is already taking on increasingly serious proportions.
One of the highly controversial practical examples of the decriminalization proposed by the Union is that in the affected France, prostitution is considered an otherwise tolerated act, he added. According to him, the serious failure of Brussels' policy of encouraging and liberalizing and decriminalizing is also the fact that the number of gang rapes and crimes related to drug trafficking has been increasing in Western Europe for years due to encouraged migration.
The decriminalization of prostitution is a controversial issue, especially in terms of whether only prostituted persons or "entrepreneurs" active in the sex industry should be decriminalized.
the expert pointed out.
Opponents of decriminalization argue that it could make trafficking worse because it greatly benefits the "fencers" and traffickers by turning them into "entrepreneurs." The phenomenon of radical legal protection shown by NGOs, often manifesting themselves as political organizations, is interesting: several organizations have called on states to decriminalize prostitution as part of a global effort to deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
However, according to Zoltán Lomnici Jr., it should be noted that the category of European criminal law is becoming more and more accepted based on the relevant provisions of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU). However, this means a limited criminal power, and according to a 2011 announcement by the European Commission, national criminal law "reflects the basic values, customs and choices of any given society" and is therefore closely related to national identity.
In other words, the union cannot intervene in how the member states decide on such matters.
Bence Tuzson also reported on a proposal from Brussels that, in the case of minor crimes, convicts should not be sent to prison, but placed in residential buildings where everyone has a separate room. Zoltán Lomnici Jr. pointed out in relation to the reintegration chances of this measure:
the basic characteristic of crimes is that they are dangerous to society.
If an act in a state of law has already been classified by the legislator as dangerous to society and illegal, it does not lose its "dangerous to society" character. In this regard, Bence Tuzson emphasized that the Hungarian government does not support this proposal either, because it emphasizes the protection of the victims, not the convicts.
