Curia\u2019s verdict<\/a>, the Prime Minister\u2019s Office released the names of the hotels where J\u00e1nos L\u00e1z\u00e1r, head of the PM’s Office, stayed during his 2013 trips to Milan and Zurich. He slept in luxury hotels in both cities: Four Seasons in Milan, Eden Au Lac in Zurich.<\/p>\nBoth hotels are considered to be among the best hotels of each city. Fours Seasons is a worldwide luxury hotel chain (its hotel in Budapest is also among the most expensive ones here) and its Milan hotel is advertised as being located \u201cin one of Italy’s sleekest and most fashionable shopping districts\u201d. The five-star Eden Au Lac\u2019s website says it is \u201cone of Zurich\u2019s long-standing luxury hotels, right by the Lake Zurich\u201d and \u201cfor over a century business travellers, art lovers, gourmets, holiday guests and celebrities have enjoyed the warmest of welcomes here\u201d.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Curia, the highest court in Hungary, upheld the previous verdict that forced the office to reveal the names of the hotels where L\u00e1z\u00e1r slept in Milan and Z\u00fcrich. Both trips drew attention because of unusually high hotel bills.<\/p>\n
That ruling was issued in March by the Budapest Court of Appeal. The Prime Minister\u2019s Office turned to the Curia with a request for legal review but the Curia rejected their arguments to overturn the previous verdict.<\/p>\n
The Curia said that the freedom of information law clearly defines public records as any information concerning activities of public officials. Only private information are excluded from this category but, the Curia argued, it cannot be considered private information where Mr. L\u00e1z\u00e1r stayed on his official trips.<\/p>\n
The public information lawsuit was launched by Andr\u00e1s Peth\u0151, a co-founder of Direkt36, last year when he was still working for newsportal Origo. Transparency International (TI) provided legal assistance for Peth\u0151, who was represented in the Budapest Court of Appeal by Daniel Karsai, an attorney co-operating with TI.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit started after the Prime Minister\u2019s Office had refused to answer questions about some of Mr. L\u00e1z\u00e1r\u2019s trips that resulted in unusually high hotel bills. On a 2012 November three-day trip to England the hotel stay cost more than 3000 euros for L\u00e1z\u00e1r and an official accompanying him. On a 2013 July trip to Milan the hotel cost more than 1920 euros per night for L\u00e1z\u00e1r and his aide. On a 2013 March trip to Zurich the hotel expense was 603 euros for one night. Earlier, the Prime Minister\u2019s Office said that the Zurich hotel room cost more than 1500 euros but later they revised the number, citing an accounting error.<\/p>\n
The Prime Minister\u2019s Office argued that the trips\u2019 details can not be released for national security reasons. They said that the trips were related to Mr. L\u00e1z\u00e1r\u2019s duties as the supervisor of the Information Agency, the government\u2019s intelligence office.<\/p>\n
The latest ruling does not cover Mr. L\u00e1z\u00e1r\u2019s visit to England. The Prime Minister\u2019s Office disclosed during the initial trial in the lower court that there was a confidential document pertaining to that trip. The court ruled that the hotel name should be disclosed as that information has not been classified. L\u00e1z\u00e1r\u2019s office appealed against the decision.<\/p>\n
L\u00e1z\u00e1r suggested that he might not follow the court\u2019s legally binding decision. \u201cThe court cannot verify whether what I say is true, because I can say that I do not remember, or I can say something that is not true about with whom I was in the hotel\u201d, said L\u00e1z\u00e1r on a press conference when asked about the court decision, according to Index.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The head of the Prime Minister’s Office stayed in fancy hotels in both cities: Four Seasons in Milan and Eden au Lac in Zurich.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[440],"class_list":["post-1194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lazar-janos-utazasai","author-petho-andras"],"authors":[{"term_id":440,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"petho-andras","display_name":"Andr\u00e1s Peth\u0151","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/av_Peto_Andras.png","url2x":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/av_Peto_Andras.png"},"description":"[:hu]Andr\u00e1s a Direkt36 egyik alap\u00edt\u00f3ja, szerkeszt\u0151je \u00e9s \u00fcgyvezet\u0151 igazgat\u00f3ja. Kor\u00e1bban az Origo vezet\u0151 szerkeszt\u0151je volt, miel\u0151tt a port\u00e1l r\u00e9sze lett a korm\u00e1ny propagandag\u00e9pezet\u00e9nek. Andr\u00e1s dolgozott a BBC World Service-n\u00e9l Londonban \u00e9s a Washington Post t\u00e9nyfelt\u00e1r\u00f3 rovat\u00e1n\u00e1l is. R\u00e9szt vett sz\u00e1mos nagy nemzetk\u00f6zi nyomoz\u00f3 projektben, k\u00f6zt\u00fck a Panama-iratok feldolgoz\u00e1s\u00e1ban. K\u00e9tszer is elnyerte a legjobbnak \u00edt\u00e9lt t\u00e9nyfelt\u00e1r\u00f3 cikkek szerz\u0151inek j\u00e1r\u00f3 Soma-d\u00edjat. T\u00f6bbsz\u00f6r tanult \u00f6szt\u00f6nd\u00edjjal az Egyes\u00fclt \u00c1llamokban: 2008-ban a World Press Institute programj\u00e1ban, 2012-13-ban Humphrey-\u00f6szt\u00f6nd\u00edjask\u00e9nt a Marylandi Egyetemen, 2019-20-ban pedig Nieman-\u00f6szt\u00f6nd\u00edjask\u00e9nt a Harvard Egyetemen. Andr\u00e1s t\u00f6bb magyar egyetemen is tan\u00edtott \u00fajs\u00e1g\u00edr\u00f3 kurzusokat.\r\n[:en]Andr\u00e1s is a co-founder, editor and executive director of Direkt36. Previously, he was a senior editor for leading Hungarian news site Origo before it had been transformed into the government\u2019s propaganda outlet. He also worked for the BBC World Service in London and was a reporter at the investigative unit of The Washington Post. He has contributed to several international reporting projects, including The Panama Papers. He twice won the Soma Prize, the prestigious annual award dedicated to investigative journalism in Hungary. He was a World Press Institute fellow in 2008, a Humphrey fellow at the University of Maryland in 2012\/13, and a Nieman fellow at Harvard University in 2019\/20. Andr\u00e1s has taught journalism courses at Hungarian universities.[:]","first_name":"Andr\u00e1s","last_name":"Peth\u0151","user_url":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1194"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9156,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194\/revisions\/9156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1194"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}