The ruling Fidesz party plans to propose to parliament a wide-ranging package of legislative amendments based on a review of all child protection laws, with a view to preventing pedophilia and other forms of child abuse such as the production, collection and dissemination of child pornography.
Máté Kocsis, the head of the Fidesz parliamentary group, referred to the recent case involving Gábor Kaleta, Hungary’s former ambassador to Peru who received a suspended prison sentence for possession of child pornography.
According to MTI, Kocsis said the case highlighted various shortfalls in current Hungarian regulations. He called the court ruling “problematic” and “weak”, and he said it was incomprehensible that the prosecutor’s office had not appealed for a stiffer sentence.
Kocsis said he is personally heading a new working group to review Hungary’s child protection system. The group will comprise child protection specialists, lawyers, criminal law experts, the heads and staff of the relevant ministries, as well as Fidesz and Christian Democrat lawmakers. “Pedophilia crimes are such that the very thought of them should be punishable,” he said.
Photo credit: IB Blog