A professional conference was held on Thursday at the Budapest Balassi Bálint Institute responsible for coordinating the work of Hungarian cultural institutes abroad. The conference was attended by the representatives of Hungarian cultural diplomacy and the directors of Hungarian institutes abroad. The Government was represented by Deputy Prime Minister Tibor Navracsics.
The development of a public service code of ethics began as part of the Preventive Anti-Corruption Programme in Public Administration approved by the Government in March. The Ministry also relies on the experience of experts from the OECD in the making of the code. The experts of the international organisation held a seminar under the title Codes of Ethics in Practice at the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice on Thursday.
As part of the Government’s anti-corruption programme, Hungary will join the Open Government Partnership, an initiative conceived in the spirit of international cooperation that now operates in more than fifty countries, and thereby makes a number of pledges to fight corruption and to implement a more transparent system of public administration. Minister of Public Administration and Justice Tibor Navracsics will forward the Government’s declaration of intent to the organisation in July.
On Tuesday Minister of Public Administration and Justice Tibor Navracsics spoke at a conference of his ministry’s Child-friendly Justice System Working Group, when he called for further emphasis on the needs of children when training judges.
Dr András Levente Gál, government commissioner for the coordination of the implementation of the Good State development concept, had talks with leading US universities on student exchange programmes and joint research projects. The purpose of the consultations conducted with the representatives of Tufts University, Fletcher School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government is to enable the students of the National Public Service University to improve their skills at universities in the United States in the future.
A German-Hungarian conference on the economy, science, tourism and regional development was held in the vicinity of Hungary’s largest lake, Lake Balaton, a major tourist destination.
Deputy Prime Minister Tibor Navracsics sincerely hopes that the parties may find a successful resolution to the case of the Irish driver responsible for the deaths of two children, the so-called Tobin case, at the planned meeting with the Irish Minister for Justice and the EU commissioner for justice.
The New Penal Code will enter into force on 1 July 2013; it was passed by the Hungarian Parliament on 25 June 2012 after several months of wide-ranging social and professional consultations and political debates. The new Penal Code also offers an effective response to the changes in crime patterns that have occurred in the past thirty years, since the entry into force of the Criminal Code currently in effect.
Unemployment is one of the gravest problems for young generations in Europe; this was the conclusion of the Tuesday debate session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe where the Government of Hungary was represented by Péter Mihalovics, Ministerial Commissioner for the coordination of the Government’s Programme for the Future of the New Generation. In his speech, the young politician confirmed the Hungarian Government’s commitment to the improvement of the quality of life for young people and raised the idea of extending the range of benefits offered in conjunction with student cards.
At the request of the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice, the Irish Department of Justice and Equality officially confirmed the information previously learned from news released by the press that, based on the decision of the Supreme Court of Ireland, Francis Ciaran Tobin cannot be extradited to Hungary, and the custody of the man who caused an accident resulting in the deaths of two children in Hungary on 9 April 2000 has been terminated.