Making the EU Charter a leading human rights litigation tool in Hungary

ended

The CharterWise project by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union aims at bringing the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights from the attention periphery of the legal profession to the centre of the human rights litigation scene in Hungary. The project will first empower 25 CSO representatives through blended learning and a strategy-building retreat, to equip them to become ‘Charter champions’. Second, the project will elaborate and pilot a sustainable model training curriculum for attorneys, and train 45 attorneys around the country in cooperation with the Bar Association. Third, project partners will elaborate and pilot a versatile academic curriculum on the Charter in cooperation with Hungarian law schools, reaching at least 60 law students, completed with a public research paper writing competition. Fourth, an awareness-raising campaign will target the wider legal profession, active citizens and potential victims in Hungary, reaching directly at least 5,000 persons. This will include hope-based storytelling on the impact of the Charter as a litigation tool (5 stories), 6 dedicated blog articles, a Charter-based know-your-rights plain language guide for potential victims, diverse social media activities and a public event. Expected results include the multiplication of Hungarian lawyers equipped and motivated to bring forward domestic and European strategic litigation based on the Charter, the construction of a Charter-based joint CSO litigation strategy, the sustainable mainstreaming of the Charter into university legal education and the mandatory accredited training of attorneys, the creation of yet lacking Hungarian-language legal literature on the Charter, the increased ability of victims to recognise Charter-based rights violations in their own situation and challenge it through litigation, as well as improved awareness in Hungarian society of the centrality of fundamental rights protection in the EU legal system.