EU court starts hearing case over Hungary’s alleged anti-LGBTQ law
Al Jazeera
The EU alleges the Hungarian law undermines core human rights values while Budapest says it wants to protect children.
The top court in the European Union has started hearing a case that marks a major confrontation between Hungary and the bloc over a law criticised as being anti-LGBTQ.
A lawyer for the European Commission, which in December 2022 referred the case to the Court of Justice, told the tribunal on Tuesday that the legislation was a “massive and flagrant violation of several important EU rules”.
“This is a frontal and serious attack on the rule of law and more generally on European society.”
The Hungarian Child Protection Act is legislation approved by the Central European country in 2021 with the ostensible goal of safeguarding children from harm, including by imposing a zero-tolerance policy for convicted paedophiles.
But it also puts restrictions on depictions of homosexuality and gender reassignment in media and educational content made for children under 18, prompting outrage from activists and many politicians in other EU countries who criticised the law for stigmatising LGBTQ people and equating same-sex relations to paedophilia.
