Access to justice for Roma in Hungary and Serbia

The report “Building trust in equality: Enhancing access to justice for Roma in Hungary and Serbia”, published in September 2022, was produced in the framework of the ‘Roma Equality through Increased Legal Access’ (REILA) project funded by the European Union. The project has been running since September 2020, jointly overseen by Minority Rights Group Europe (MRGE), Praxis (Serbia) and Idetartozunk (‘We Belong Here’) Association (Hungary). The aim of the project is to promote and protect the rights of Roma subject to human rights violations and discrimination by raising awareness 

across society and among stakeholders, enhancing implementation of non-discrimination legislation, and empowering Roma to seek legal remedies in Hungary and Serbia

The report summarizes the lessons learned from the fieldwork based on mediators’ own experiences and compiles discrimination cases in both countries, including their resolution. It also maps how field visits and legal work contributed to raising awareness among Roma about their rights and supported them in eliminating obstacles to their access to justice. Furthermore, the lessons and outcomes of the field visits and legal work in the two target countries can potentially be applied and implemented in other European contexts where Roma face similar difficulties in their access to justice in discrimination cases.

In Serbia and Hungary, Roma routinely experience discrimination, usually fuelled by negative attitudes and prejudices, in a variety of areas of their lives from an early age. Despite the high number of occurrences, incidents of discrimination typically go unreported. Roma often have
to accept discrimination against them as part of their daily lives and are reluctant to report cases to the authorities out of fear of retaliation or because they lack faith in the effectiveness of the justice system. In Hungary, the complicated regulation of legal representation, the protracted nature and uncertain outcome of discrimination cases, as well as the limited preventive effect of judgments, further contribute to the reluctance of Roma to report discrimination. In both countries, Roma are in need of legal support since they often lack knowledge of the legal definition of discrimination, the
available legal remedies and the legal fora they could turn to. They are also discouraged by the inefficient nature of the legal system and the various barriers they face once
they choose to report it. Therefore, the number of cases reported to the national equality bodies (the Commissioner for Protection of Equality in Serbia and the Directorate-General of Equal Treatment in Hungary – CPE and DGET respectively) only represent a small proportion of the actual discrimination Roma face. 

Even in those cases which are reported to the national equality body, positive decisions or recommendations are adopted only in a small number of cases.

The legal work of the REILA project, by raising awareness of Roma communities about their rights and the available legal remedies through mediators, free legal counselling and support in reporting their cases to the national equality body, aimed to address the obstacles that Roma face in their access to justice.

The Full Report you can find here

Reference from the official website of the NGO PRAXIS