The government is drafting a bill that would ban the possibility of probation for criminals who have committed or attempted to commit murder, Gergely Gulyás, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office, told a government press briefing on Thursday.

The move comes after a man imprisoned for murder in Győr, in western Hungary, released on probation, went on to murder his two children and commit suicide.

Minister of Justice to Launch Investigation after Newly Released Prisoner Kills His Children

The courts “made a grave mistake” by releasing the man, Gulyás said, adding that he had been handed an “unacceptably lenient sentence” for crimes committed previously. He added that

Had he not been sentenced so leniently he would still be behind bars and the children would be alive”

The law, he added, offered judges the option of meting out stricter punishments but they often failed to do so. Judges should provide a justification for any deviation from the standard range of sentencing, he said.

Gulyás said that the justice minister will ask the Kúria, Hungary’s supreme court, to assess whether current sentencing for crimes against human life is strict enough.

Meanwhile, in reply to a question, Gulyás said parliament will not ratify the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. He said the convention would not have had any bearing on the Győr case, and Hungarian law in any case guaranteed stronger protections for women than the Istanbul accord.

He said “hysteria” around the convention was aimed at forcing the government accept non-binary genders. “The government will not accept that ideology,” he said.

In the featured photo: PMO Head Gergely Gulyás. Photo by Attila Kovács/MTI