At a government press conference last summer, Gergely Gulyas dismissed this 444. is A question about Peter Szijjarto that he could not answer: “I recommend asking the Minister of Foreign Affairs. (…) He regularly holds press conferences, where – if I follow the press correctly – those present regularly ask questions. “So Peter Szijjarto can be accused of many things,” the minister said. “But not by escaping the press.”
However, a large part of the press, including 444 journalists, cannot participate in these press conferences, and only those selected can ask Peter Szijjarto. All this in such a way that the Minister is puzzled abroad by the criticism of press freedom in Hungary, in his opinion the situation is much worse in the West. In July, Gergely Gulyas addressed the newspaper to the Foreign Ministry, and they contacted the Ministry to ask if they would also like to participate in the aforementioned press events. Not only did they not receive an invitation, they did not even receive a response. Thus, after half a year of waiting, in December last year, the newspaper asked the Ministry for information of general interest about the editorial offices to which invitations had been sent and who would participate in the press conferences held by Szijjarto. Not only in the Ministry building on Behm Square, but in Brussels as well.
Photo: MTI/Attila Kovacs
Then the case took a startling turn
The ministry first responded to the data request by saying that journalists could watch Sjjarto's press conferences on Facebook. Moreover, not all at once, but as often as they like. The newspaper did not accept the answer and filed a lawsuit.
In this action, the Ministry first tried to claim that it was not data of public interest. However, according to the Metropolitan Court's preliminary ruling (in February), they are. The Ministry also clarified that the required data is not available and has been deleted. They are not subject to a two-year retention obligation, so they are deleted regularly.
The Metropolitan Court was not convinced. The ruling stated that these are the invitations that reach the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with all kinds of spam, and not those sent by the Ministry.
On the other hand, invitations sent by the Ministry to editorial offices are subject to another section of the Ministry’s document management regulations, which requires the preservation of documents. Then, if the deletion is not proven, this data must be present in the ministry, and there is no objection to its publication.
The decision of the Second Instance Court of the Capital Court of Appeal stated the following:
“Based on the invitations addressed to press agencies, there is no objection to disclosing data related to the editorial offices that invited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to attend press conferences during the specified period.”
The State Department also tried to claim that the names of the participants were personal data and were not stored. To no avail. It has been nearly 10 months since the public interest data request was submitted, and the newspaper won the legal case, but the ministry's information has not yet arrived.
