Opponents of Compulsory Vaccination Bombard Constitutional Court with Complaints

Several hundred complaints have been filed so far with the Constitutional Court to challenge the government’s decree on mandatory vaccination of employees of private companies and state employees. The complaints of healthcare workers were already dismissed at the end of November.

This article was originally published on our sister-site, Ungarn Heute.

At the end of October 2021, the government allowed companies to make vaccination mandatory for their employees. In addition, vaccination of state employees became mandatory. Specifically, this applies to employees of the education system, cultural and social institutions, employees of the police and armed forces, and state officials. For employees of municipalities, the respective mayor decides.

The employees of the state or municipalities who appealed to the Constitutional Court mainly presented the following objections regarding the ordinance:

• The extent of the sanction in the case of failure to vaccinate is disproportionate and the fundamental rights are unreasonably restricted for the achievement of the desired goal.
• It violates the fundamental right of human dignity, as it does not allow exemption from the obligation to vaccinate in the case of natural immunity.
• It violates Paragraph III. of Paragraph 2 of the Fundamental Right, according to which one can conduct a medical or scientific experiment only in the case of informed voluntary consent.

Employees of the companies have also presented similar objections, also pointing to the Labor Code:

The employee may refuse to carry out the instruction if it violates a rule related to the employment relationship, or directly and seriously endangers life, physical safety, or health.”

According to the opinion of the Secretary of State for Health, who sent the complaint to the Constitutional Court on December 22, the measures restricting fundamental rights are necessary because of the protection of public health.

The Constitutional Court already dismissed the complaints of healthcare workers regarding their vaccination obligation on November 30.

In the case of teachers, the introduction of compulsory vaccination in schools has already led to concrete consequences, in that they have to supplement the teachers who have left with university or college students in some cases. According to the Ministry, 1 percent of teachers had to leave their jobs because of refusal to vaccinate.

Sources: Index, HVG

Featured image via György Varga/MTI