Belgian prisoners in Hungary

This section refers to Belgian citizens who have been arrested in Hungary or are currently in a Hungarian prison.

The purpose of this section is to inform you about your rights, the procedures and the actions that the Belgian Embassy in Budapest can take to facilitate your case. 

Your rights as a citizen of the European Union :

• You have the right to have access to a lawyer provided by the Hungarian state. 
• You have the right to demand that administrative documents of your prison be presented to you in your native language.
• You have the right to equal treatment with Hungarian prisoners and no discrimination based on your nationality is allowed.
• You have the right to keep access to medicines that you can prove you need.

The procedures to which you are entitled:

• If you want our embassy to remain informed about your situation, to provide you with administrative assistance and to share information about you with your relatives and family, you should have indicated this at the time of your admission to prison, by ticking the appropriate box on the admission form (often called "Befogadási nyomtatvány"). If you did not do so at that time, you can request it at any time on a blank sheet of paper and send it to the prison management via your social worker. 
• If you wish to contact relatives, receive their mail and allow them to visit you in your detention facility, your relatives must fill in and sign the document entitled "Kapcsolattartói nyilatkozat" / "Declaration registered contact person" and return it to the prison authorities. To do this, you must first ask the prison to provide you with this blank form, which you must then send by post to your relatives, who will in turn send the completed form to the prison.
• If you wish to request a transfer to a Belgian prison, please write a blank application form and send it to the prison authorities. 

What our embassy can do to help you :

• Provide you and your relatives with a list of Hungarian lawyers competent in criminal matters (please click here for the full list). If the lawyer assigned to you by the Hungarian state is not suitable, we suggest that you contact a lawyer from our list to take over your case.
• Inform your relatives about your situation and your condition.
• Facilitate contact with the prison authorities in case of procedural problems, language misunderstandings or medical complications.

Our embassy is not competent to determine a defence strategy for the detainee, nor is it competent to provide legal advice. 

For any other question, please consult our FAQ on the matter. 

You can also consult the FPS Foreign Affairs brochure on assistance to Belgians detained abroad.