The office of Hungary’s chief prosecutor handled a total of 1,032,000 cases in 2019, up from some 634,000 the year before, Chief Prosecutor Péter Polt told public broadcaster Kossuth Radio on Wednesday.
Polt said that while over 6,400 complaints concerning his office’s workings had been lodged in 2017, a mere 3,003 such complaints had been filed last year. He also reported that the number of crimes had been reduced from 226,452 in 2017 to 165,648 in 2019, adding that the smaller number of violent crimes indicated an improvement in public safety.
Concerning the opposition’s questioning the chief prosecutor’s independence, Polt said that his office was independent and “that independence is governed by strict rules and requirements”. He insisted that the chief prosecutor “must only observe the law and regulations concerning the prosecutor’s office”. “The prosecutor’s office is a technical agency and those attacks are of a political nature,” he insisted.