BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday that it had been unlawful to extradite a German citizen who identifies as non-binary to Hungary, upholding her argument that the decision violated the European Union’s Charter on Fundamental Rights.
Under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Hungary has introduced anti-LGBTQ+ policies, including laws that Brussels says discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
The person, identified by German media only as Maja T., is accused in Hungary of attacking suspected far-right sympathisers in Budapest in February 2023.
The defendant is currently being held in a Hungarian jail after being arrested in Berlin in December 2023 on a European arrest warrant at Hungary’s behest. The defendant was transferred to Hungary before the Constitutional Court could stop it with an injunction.
In Thursday’s ruling, Germany’s top court upheld the defendant’s appeal on the basis of Article 4 of the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, which states that no one will be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
“The constitutional complaint is successful,” the ruling said, adding that the court which had allowed the extradition to go ahead had not sufficiently clarified the circumstances of detention that awaited the complainant in Hungary.
Authorities in Hungary – an EU member but which has clashed with Brussels on a range of issues including LGBT rights and the rule of law – have given assurances that non-binary people are not subject to discrimination or violence in prisons there.
It was not immediately clear whether Germany would ask Hungary to return its citizen.
(Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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