The case is "Zsolt Buldoche, Janosne Ildiko Markus, Victoria Marton, Sandor Mesaros, Gergely Polk and Janos Szabo v. Hungary". Views of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities dated September 9, 2013. Communication No. 4/2011.
In 2011, the author of the communication was assisted in the preparation of complaints. Subsequently, the complaint was communicated to Hungary.
By depriving the authors of the right to vote on the basis of perceived or actual mental retardation, the State party has failed to comply with its obligations under article 29 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, taken individually or jointly with article 12 of the Convention.
As seen from the text of the Considerations, all six authors "suffered from mental retardation" and were placed under partial or general custody by court decision. The automatic consequence of placing them under guardianship was the exclusion of the authors' names from the voter lists in accordance with paragraph 5 of article 70 of the Hungarian Constitution of the State party, which was in force at that time and provided that persons placed under full or partial guardianship did not have the right to vote. Due to this limitation of their legal capacity, the authors were unable to participate in the parliamentary elections in Hungary on April 11, 2010 and in the municipal elections that took place on October 3, 2010. At the moment, they are still disenfranchised and therefore cannot participate in elections. The authors of the communication claimed that the direct application of paragraph 5 of article 70 of the Hungarian Constitution to them automatically excluded them from the electoral rolls. Such decisions to deprive them of their legal capacity did not take into account their ability to vote, since, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, they were automatically and indiscriminately disenfranchised, regardless of the nature of their disability, their individual capabilities or the scope of application of the decision to deprive them of their legal capacity. The authors drew attention to the fact that they understand political issues and could participate in the elections. They considered such an automatic ban to be unjustified and in violation of article 29, taken separately or in conjunction with article 12 of the Convention.
Information about this case is presented in the Review of Judicial Practice of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation for the fourth quarter of 2013, approved by the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on June 4, 2014.
The Committee's assessment of the factual circumstances of the case: the authors' allegations that the automatic exclusion of their names from the voter lists based on the application of paragraph 5 of article 70 of the Hungarian Constitution, in force at the time of submission of their communication, violated article 29, taken separately and jointly with article 12 of the Convention, have been noted. In particular, the authors argued that the automatic disenfranchisement of them, regardless of the nature of their disability and their individual abilities, was discriminatory and unjustified. The Committee also took into account the State party's arguments that, since article 70, paragraph 5, of the Hungarian Constitution was repealed as a result of the adoption of the Hungarian Basic Law, and that article 26, paragraph 2, of the Provisional Provisions of the Hungarian Basic Law provides for an individual assessment of a person's right to vote on the basis of his or her legal capacity, his law currently complies with article 29 of the Convention (paragraph 9.2 of the Views).
By depriving the authors of the right to vote on the basis of perceived or actual mental retardation, the State party has failed to comply with its obligations under article 29 of the Convention, taken individually or jointly with article 12 of the Convention (paragraph 9.5 of the Views).
The Committee's conclusion: the State party has not fulfilled its obligations under article 29, taken separately or jointly with article 12 of the Convention.