1987. augusztus (98-100. szám) / HU_BFL_XIV_47_2

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24/0 <■;«<• Rm*«»I Stre.t, LONDONI, WC.f. • Ttl. Oi-^O K tó • G. Krané

98/1937/e/ Ist August, 1987

A strange decisión

The Budapest City Council in its capacity as a court of appeal fór petty offences reduced forraerfines by 2000 forints. This included Tibor Philijpjr. who had been fined 8000 in April and the 5000 forint fines of Peter Bokros, Tamás Molnár and Róbert Pálinkás, raembers of the Budapest INC0NNU art group. This year the democratic opp- osition has been penalised in this way by altogether 122 000 forints - fór once the fine was nőt raised bút vas decreased to 114. 000 forints.

Last summer the INC0NNU group held an international fine art competition entitled "The fighting city" featuring commemorative uorks about 1956. They vanted to exhibit the works they received in a priváté fiat and then auction tnem using the proceeds fór the poor. After many delays - what with somé of the works sent frora abroad nőt being delivered by the Hungárián post, and others being confiscated by the police - members of the group finally wished to hang all the works collected in Tibor Philip*s fiat and show and sell them on January 28. Bút a few hours after the opening the police conducted a house search and seized all the works. They held the exhibition by hanging photocopies of the police reports in piacé of the paintings.

At the beginning of April the tenant of the fiat was fined 8000 and the members of the art group 5000 each, they were charged with infringement of press and art laws and with receiving prohibited donations. Those who were fined lodged a protest to Lenárd Pál, ideological secretary of the party’s Central committee, and they officially submitted an appeal. The event was recorded as a fascist action — that is why the police seized and destroyed the works -, they pointed out that this part of the proceedings was illegal.

The new decision which reduced the amount of the fines maintained once again that the police sequestered the exhibited paintings legally, the question of the freedom of artistic production was evaded. The judgement again upheld that prohibited donations were received, disregarding the reasoned appeal which argued with the fact that it was the artists’priváté collection which they planned to pút on auction.

The authorities were nőt interested in the fact that the money collected would have been given to the poor, they illegally qualified the described "action" as the receipt of prohibited donations. The artists could have been accused with "unlawful trans- action" which is Iáid down in minor offence law in paragraph 111. g (l) . Bút they did nőt produce this paragraph because they would have had to refer the litigation of the minor offences to the jurisdiction of the trade authority. The city council alsó overlooked t^e fact that preparatory measures are nőt punishable by law; because of the sequestration the sale did nőt take piacé therefore the establishment of the crime was illegal. The authorities should have alsó known that according to paragraph 23. § (2) in the minor offence law the fine imposed upon the defendant under various

charges shouldn’t exceed the maximum fine that can be given fór the most severe petty offence. Thus no more than 5000 forints should have been levied on Tibor Philipp.

The decision of the first instance was probably mitigated by a higher will, bút even this was nőt legally justified. The punishment of the three INC0NNU group members was reduced owing to the fact that there had been no proceedings against them previously. In actual fact there had been proceedings against them earlier, Tamás Molnár had had a very heavy fine imposed upon him in 1983 when he had copied the picture of Imre Nagy and his accused companions - who were later executed - on a home made "screen printing press". The judgement concerning Tibor Philip however did nőt mention any extenuating circumstances in spite of the fact that he had nőt been punished earlier, and he was made to pay twice as high a fine as the others despite the mitigation, although he had only helped the artists by making his fiat available to them.

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