< Back to Compendium

1. Source of the legal provision

Section 333 of Law C of 2012 Criminal Code (New Criminal Code) [2012. évi C. törvény a Büntető Törvénykönyvről] Available in the original language via: Wolters Kluwer: <https://net.jogtar.hu/jogszabaly?docid=a1200100.tv>

2. Legal Provision in English

Public denial of the crimes of National Socialist or Communist regimes
  • 333. Whoever denies, casts doubt on, trivializes, or attempts to justify the facts of genocide committed by the National Socialist or Communist regimes or other acts against humanity in public, shall be punished for the crime by up to three years imprisonment.

3. Legal Provision in the original language

A nemzetiszocialista vagy kommunista rendszerek bűneinek nyilvános tagadása Aki nagy nyilvánosság előtt a nemzetiszocialista vagy kommunista rendszerek által elkövetett népirtás vagy más, emberiesség elleni cselekmények tényét tagadja, kétségbe vonja, jelentéktelen színben tünteti fel, vagy azokat igazolni törekszik, bűntett miatt három évig terjedő szabadságvesztéssel büntetendő.

4. Key Points

  • The Hungarian provision includes the prohibition of denial, casting doubt on, trivializing, or attempting to justify the crimes covered by the provision, which do not need to pass the threshold of incitement to violence.
  • It covers not only the Holocaust but also communist atrocities, as well as other crimes against humanity (which are not limited to Nazi or communist crimes). There is no need for the crimes concerned to be established by a court. Nor does the offence require any likely incitement to hatred or violence.
  • In its list of crimes, however, also lies a notable limitation: it leaves, in particular, war crimes, out of the scope. The Holocaust is not specifically referenced, only Nazi crimes more generally.
  • The possible sanction is up to three years of imprisonment.
  • An infringement procedure for not fully transposing EU Framework Decision on Racism and Xenophobia 2008/913/JHA (hereafter ‘EU FD 2008’),[1] is ongoing, despite the changes to the law introduced in 2016 to make it more in line with the EU FD 2008.

5. Background

The Hungarian Criminal Code provision[2] came into force in 2012, alongside many other reforms introduced by the Viktor Orbán administration which are oftentimes considered “illiberal”.[3] Initially, unlike some other countries within the region (e.g., Poland) for many years after the transition from communism, Hungary was simply relying on the articles of its Criminal Code concerning the offence of “incitement against a community” to deal with negationism.[4] However, following the EU FD 2008, a specific piece of legislation on Holocaust denial was introduced in 2010 by the outgoing socialist administration. The new illiberal government of Viktor Orbán added a prohibition of denial of the negation of communist crimes, while at the same time removing a direct reference to the Holocaust from the article.[5]

6. Application

The first and most widely-known case of a prosecution of a Holocaust denier that we could identify took place in 2011 after Gyorgy Nagy was arrested at a protest for holding a banner inscribed with the words “The Shoah did not happen”. In 2013, he was sentenced to 18 months of a suspended prison sentence, and additionally obliged by the court to visit the Auschwitz Memorial Museum, the Yad Vashem Institute or the Budapest’s Holocaust Museum – but in case of choosing the latter he would need to make at least three separate excursions and produce a record of his observations.[6] Since then, eight other cases have been initiated by the Budapest Chief Prosecutor Office in the years 2013-2023.[7]

7. Controversies

Hungary has a particular relationship with its World War II past, having refocused its collective memory from the country’s involvement in the Holocaust (the Hungarian Horthy government was an ally of Hitler) to the Nazi 1944 occupation of the country already during the communist era, when the first monuments dedicated to all the victims of fascism (and not specifically Jewish victims) appeared in the public spaces.[8] This policy has been continued after 1989, in particular by the current Orbán administration who constructed a controversial monument to all the victims of the German invasion,[9] as well as built a museum – the “House of Fates” (“Sorsok Háza”). The latter was supposed to tell the story of the Hungarian Holocaust, but remains unopened since the mid-2010s due to issues surrounding its narrative.[10] The law on denial in a way follows the same line, and as such came under scrutiny for having only communist and Nazi and not fascist atrocities within its scope, however it was upheld by the Hungarian Constitutional Court in its current form.[11] Another controversy concerns the Section 335 (previously Article 269/B of the old Criminal Code) of the country’s current Criminal Code.[12] This provision criminalises the public display of certain symbols (e.g., the swastika, the hammer and sickle, the five-pointed red star). While upheld by the country’s Constitutional Court, the European Court of Human Rights found it unnecessary in relation to the communist symbols given the lack of a danger posed by this ideology to modern-day Hungary[13] in the 2010 Vajnai case,[14] and the 2011 Frantanoló case.[15] In December 2021, the European Commission opened an infringement proceeding against Hungary for not fully implementing EU FD 2008. The Commission criticised that the Hungarian provision failed to criminalise the public condoning, denial or gross trivialisation of international crimes per se.[16] The procedure is still ongoing, a reasoned opinion having been sent in January 2023.[17]

8. Further Reading

  • Fijalkowski, Agata. 2014. The criminalisation of symbols of the past: expression, law and memory. 10(3) International Journal of Law in Context 295-314.
  • Gorton, Sean. 2015. The Uncertain Future of Genocide Denial Laws in the European Union. 47:2 George Washington International Law Review 421.
  • Pető, Andrea. 2019. The Lost and Found Library: Paradigm Change in the Memory of the Holocaust in Hungary. 9 Mémoires en jeu: enjeux de société / Memories at stake 77-81.
[1] Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law. [2] ‘Hungarian Criminal Code’ <https://vidakovics.hu/nemzetiszocialista-vagy-kommunista-rendszerek-buneinek-nyilvanos-tagadasa-btk-333/> accessed 04.08.2024. [3] Mirosław M. Sadowski, ‘Central Europe in the Search of (Lost) Identity. The Illiberal Swerve’ in Alesksandra Mercescu (ed.), Constitutional Identities in Central and Eastern Europe. The CEE Yearbook vol. 8 (Peter Lang 2020) 173-193, 176-177. [4] Marina Bán, The Legal Governance of Historical Memory and the Rule of Law (PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam) 201, https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/51201837/Thesis.pdf> accessed 04.08.2024. [5] Bán (n 259) 201. [6] Nissan Tzur, ‘Hungary orders Holocaust denier to visit Auschwitz’ <https://www.jpost.com/jewish-world/jewish-news/hungary-orders-holocaust-denier-to-visit-auschwitz> accessed 04.08.2024. [7] Mihály B. Botos, ‘A „specifikus hazugságot” büntető tényállásA nemzetiszocialista és a kommunista rendszerek bűneinek nyilvános tagadása tényállással kapcsolatos  hazai g yakorlat vizsgálata’ [2024] 8 In Medias Res 114-138. [8] Gábor Gyáni, ‘Hungarian Memory of the Holocaust in Hungary’ in Randolph L. Braham and András Kovács (eds), The Holocaust in Hungary. Seventy Years Later (Central European University Press 2016) 215-230, 216. [9] Mark MacKinnon, ‘Statue in Budapest based on Second World War evokes dark history’ <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/statue-in-budapest-based-on-second-world-war-evokes-dark-history/article22099406/> accessed 04.08.2024. [10] Sheena McKenzie, ‘This Holocaust museum cost millions and still hasn’t opened. But that’s not what worries historians’ <https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2018/11/world/holocaust-museum-hungary-cnnphotos/> accessed 04.08.2024. [11] Aleksandra Gliszczyńska-Grabias, Grażyna Baranowska, Anna Wójcik, Mirosław M. Sadowski and Anastasiia Vorobiova, Memory Laws in Poland and Hungary. Report by the research consortium ‘The Challenges of Populist Memory Politics and Militant Memory Laws (MEMOCRACY) (Reports ILS PAS 2023) 45. [12] Section 335 of Law C of 2012 on the Criminal Code (New Criminal Code): “A person who, in a manner capable of disturbing public peace or, in particular, violating the human dignity of or the right to respect for the deceased victims of despotic regimes, a) disseminates, b) uses in front of a large audience, or c) displays in publica swastika, SS insignia, arrow cross, hammer and sickle, five-pointed red star, or any symbol depicting such signs is guilty of a misdemeanour and shall be punished by confinement, unless a criminal offence of greater gravity is established”. [13] Katalin Izsák-Somogyi, ‘Memory Laws in Hungary after the Holocaust’ (2021) 2021 Regional Law Review 223-233, 231. [14] Vajnai v. Hungary, no. 33629/06 (2008). [15] Fratanoló v. Hungary, no. 29459/10 (2011). [16] European Commission, December infringement package: key decisions, 2 December 2021, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/inf_21_6201. [17] European Commission, January infringement package: key decisions, 26 January 2023, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/inf_23_142.
Scroll to Top