09 February 2007
A court in Hungary has ruled authorities must grant wider access to Communist-era secret police files on the country's religious leaders. Leaders of the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church and the Jewish community had argued that they were not public figures, thereby limiting access to any files on them, should they exist. Hungarian journalist Daniel Kozak asked a Budapest city court to decide whether they are public figures. "Religious leaders are important actors in society and influence public opinion," Kozak said before Thursday's ruling. "It is in their interest to be credible when talking about moral issues." Opening the files could reveal that religious leaders acted as informants or otherwise collaborated with the secret police.
Last year, Hungary's Catholic Church was embarrassed when Cardinal Laszlo Paskai was named as a Communist agent. Earlier this year in Poland, archbishop of Warsaw, Stanslaw Wielgus, was forced to resign after admitting that he had been a spy for the Communist secret police in the 1970s. No-one has ever been prosecuted in Hungary for their role in maintaining the Communist system. Strict limitations on access to files remain in place 18 years after the collapse of Communism in Hungary, and a number of files are believed to have been stolen to protect or to blackmail former officials. The current, Socialist-led government of prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany promised to "fully open" the files, including posting the archive's contents on the internet. But failure to reach consensus by the political parties on the law's details has kept legislation from being approved. Kozak said he wanted to call attention to the "absurd situation" surrounding the handling of the files. The journalist has initiated legal action in a similar case involving three former politicians who say they are not public figures.
