Hungarian justice ministry plans criminal code for minors

Experts at the Justice and Law Enforcement Ministry are working on establishing an autonomous criminal justice system for minors, Magyar Hírlap reports in relation to the case of the 12-year-old boy who stabbed an older boy in the thigh at Blaha Lujza tér last Thursday in order to steal his MP3 player.

The boy claims he is 12 and Hungarian law makes no provision for punishing those under 14 years of age. Children commit 3,700-4,200 crimes annually, with 75% of the perpetrators being 12-14 years old, and the number is rising, Népszabadság observes.

In addition, there were claims that the perpetrator, an ethnic Hungarian from Romania, could not be deported. However, Justice and Law Enforcement Minister Albert Takács told reporters on Monday that child protection bodies had contacted their counterparts in Romania and the boy could be sent home.

Criminologist Klára Kerezsi told Magyar Hírlap that better and more efficiently funded education as well as child protection programmes would be a better solution than lowering the punishable age limit from 14.

The boy is a known serial criminal around Blaha Lujza tér, Magyar Nemzet reports.

The above story is just one of more than two dozen published today by Hungary Around the Clock, the most comprehensive source of daily English-language news about Hungary. For a free trial of HATC, click here. Hungarian news sources include Népszabadság; Magyar Hírlap; Világgazdaság; Napi Gazdaság; Magyar Nemzet; Népszava; Kossuth Rádió news and Hungarian television's nightly news broadcast.

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