Since 2020, the state has lost 245 public interest data lawsuits in the capital alone

We looked into which government agencies are the most secretive of information of public interest. State agencies that refuse freedom of information requests, only to have the courts force them to comply. According to data received from the Budapest Metropolitan Court, the state has lost 245 information lawsuits in the first instance since 2020. In most cases, the National Public Health Center, the Ministry of Construction and Transport, and the Ministry of Justice were defendants in these lost cases.

Between the beginning of 2020 and the end of 2024, 70-85 cases per year were brought against some state body in connection with the disclosure of data of public interest. However, in 2025, 120 such cases were brought before the courts in the capital alone by the end of October, representing a 150% increase in just 10 months. So either public bodies have started concealing even more data of public interest, or were flooded with more requests than before.

Unfortunately, it has been common practice for many years for state bodies to conceal information of public interest.

Átlátszó also regularly files freedom of information requests, but very often various ministries and agencies refuse to release the data, citing business confidentiality, ongoing decision-making processes, or other absurd reasons, so we have to go to court to obtain it.

Between the beginning of 2020 and the end of 2024, 70-85 cases per year were brought against some state body in connection with the disclosure of data of public interest, but in 2025, 120 such cases were brought before the courts in the capital alone by the end of October. This represents a rough increase of one and a half times, and what is more, in just 10 months instead of 12. So either public bodies have concealed data of public interest this many times more this year, or data requesters have filed lawsuits this many times more often to obtain the data they are interested in.

In addition to our own experience, we wanted to see the bigger picture, so we requested public data from the Budapest Metropolitan Court for the period between January 1, 2020, and October 28, 2025, broken down by year and defendant. We also asked how many cases did the defendants appeal against the first-instance decision, in how many cases did the Court of Appeal order the defendant to disclose data despite the appeal, and how long did the second-instance proceedings take, i.e. when was the appeal lodged and when did the Court of Appeal issue its final decision on the merits?

The court refused to answer the last three questions, stating that “this information cannot be determined from the registry data. The requested data is only available to the court in the case files, so in order to answer the questions asked, it would be necessary to examine each of the 245 lawsuits for the disclosure of data of public interest that were pending before the Budapest Metropolitan Court during the period in question.”

Our other two questions were answered with two tables: our questions were answered with two datasets (dataset 1 and dataset 2). The tables show that since the beginning of 2020, a state body has lost 245 cases in the first instance in public interest data lawsuits, 184 cases completely and 61 cases partially.

This shows how (un)willing the state is to take its own constitution seriously and how (un)able it is to ensure the transparency of public institutions and access to data of public interest.

In most cases, the National Public Health Center (22 cases), the Ministry of Construction and Transport (18 cases), and the Ministry of Justice (also 18 cases) have been defendants in public data cases in recent years.

However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Court Office, the Ministry of the Interior and the Supreme Court also feature prominently on the list of defendants involved in 10 or more public data cases, with 17 such cases brought before the courts in each case. The National Hospital Directorate had 16 cases, the Prime Minister’s Office had 14, the (now defunct) Ministry of Human Resources and MÁV had 13 each, the Ministry of Defense 12, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Hungarian National Asset Management Agency 11-11, and the Ministry of Public Administration and the State Treasury 10-10 public data cases have been brought before the courts since 2020.

The tables received from the Budapest Metropolitan Court also clearly show that the number of public data lawsuits has increased by roughly 1.5 times this year compared to previous years.

Between the beginning of 2020 and the end of 2024, an average of 73-85 such cases were brought before the courts each year, but by the end of October this year, 120 lawsuits had already been filed against state bodies for public interest data.

The increase is clearly visible in the case of the Ministry of Construction and Transport, headed by János Lázár, and MÁV, which is managed by the ministry.

Last year, there were 5 public data lawsuits against the ministry, but this year, there were already 11 by the end of October; and three lawsuits were filed against MÁV last year, but by the end of October this year, seven lawsuits had already been filed for data of public interest. A similar increase can be seen at the Ministry of Public Administration and Regional Development, which is headed by Tibor Navracsics: three lawsuits were filed against the ministry in 2024, but by the end of October this year, seven lawsuits had already been filed.

According to the dataset showing first-instance judgments, the defendants were found fully or partially liable in all cases brought against them, meaning that in all cases, the court ordered them to disclose at least some of the data of public interest. in 2025 (by the end of October), they were ordered to fully comply with the requests 53 times, and to partially comply 15 times.

One positive change is that the length of public data court proceedings has been significantly reduced over the years, meaning that first-instance judgments in public data cases are now handed down much more quickly than five years ago.

In 2020, out of 27 proceedings, only 1 was concluded in less than 3 months, 8 proceedings lasted 3-6 months, but 13 cases dragged on for half a year, and 5 proceedings lasted more than a year. In contrast, this year, 63 public data cases were concluded in the first instance in less than three months, four proceedings lasted three to six months, and only one case dragged on for six months to a year.

Overall, the data received from the Budapest Metropolitan Court shows that certain ministries and state agencies tend to go to court regularly instead of publishing data of public interest in accordance with Hungarian law. However, their litigation is futile, as the court orders them to disclose the data, so the proceedings are only good for stalling, but not even that to the extreme, as the length of public data litigation cases has decreased significantly in recent years.