Background
Two Hungarian teachers and two teachers’ trade unions challenged legislation governing minimum services during strikes in public education. Enacted in 2022 after similar temporary emergency rules adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic, the legislation required schools to provide extensive supervision and care, 100% of compulsory-exam classes for final-year students, and 50% of classes for other students. Employees who failed to meet service obligations could face disciplinary consequences, including immediate dismissal.
All four applicants alleged that the statutory scheme violated Article 11 by undermining effective strike action. Only the second teacher and the two trade unions also brought an Article 6 access-to-court complaint, arguing that legislation had displaced judicial determination of minimum-service requirements. The first teacher separately relied on Article 18.
The Court’s Holding
The Court unanimously found a violation of Article 11. Although the restrictions were prescribed by law and could legitimately protect pupils’ right to education, Hungary had not shown that the extensive service requirements were genuinely limited to minimum needs. The fixed rules did not account for a strike’s duration, extent, or practical impact, while eliminating the earlier system of negotiation or judicial determination and excluding unions from meaningful consultation.
The legislature had not demonstrated that it weighed the competing interests, assessed the scheme’s effect on effective strike action, or considered why the previous framework was inadequate. Nor had the Government identified alternative safeguards enabling teachers and unions to defend their occupational interests. The indefinite continuation of rules derived from a pandemic emergency, combined with potentially severe and deterrent disciplinary sanctions, meant that Hungary exceeded its margin of appreciation and imposed restrictions that were not necessary in a democratic society.
The Court declared the Article 6 complaint inadmissible for failure to exhaust domestic remedies because the second teacher and the unions had not raised the access-to-court issue before the Constitutional Court. It found no need to rule separately on the first teacher’s Article 18 complaint.
Key Takeaways
- States may require minimum services during public-education strikes, but the requirements must preserve a meaningful ability to take effective industrial action.
- When imposing a general statutory restriction, the legislature must genuinely balance the competing interests and assess the measure’s necessity and proportionality.
- Broad service obligations, lack of union consultation or compensating safeguards, indefinite emergency-derived rules, and severe potential sanctions collectively made Hungary’s scheme incompatible with Article 11.
Why It Matters
The judgment does not treat public education as immune from minimum-service regulation. It instead requires governments to justify the scope and design of such rules, particularly where legislation replaces negotiation or adjudication and substantially weakens unions’ bargaining leverage.
The decision also underscores that separate Convention claims must be raised domestically in substance. Presenting a constitutional challenge to strike restrictions did not preserve a distinct Article 6 access-to-court complaint that had not itself been put before the national court.