While answering to the questionnaire, we kindly ask you to pay attention to the following details:
 We’re expecting a study of about 15 pages.
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Deadline for the study is the 30th of April.
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Please use quotations and name original resources everywhere.
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Please attach all the important material and resource available in English to your study.
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If you have any specific legislation concerning whistleblowing protection, please attach it to your study, even if it’s only available in your own language.
Please keep in mind that our cover study only serves as an example and supporting material for your work. You can freely change the order of the questions, and if you have problems with any of them, you can leave them out.
(In this case, please provide us with some information about the reason of your not answering.)
If you have any other information relevant to this study that we haven’t asked in the questionnaire, don’t hesitate to write about it.
If you have any other questions, please contact us.
Hungarian Civil Liberties Union and K-Monitor Anticorruption Watchdog Institute
Hungary
I.) Whistleblowing in general
Please give detailed answers.
1.) Did your country adopt new laws following the adoption of the UN Convention Against Corruption and the
Civil Law Convention on Corruption adopted by the Council of Europe ? If not, what was the reason of the negligence? If yes, please summarize the changes in your national law.
Did your country formulate reservation against the passages under the Vienna Convention of the Law of
Treaties?
In the past 5 years, were there any attempts to create legislation in order to protect whistleblowers in your country? If the lawmaking was not successful, please provide a short summary on the proposal and on the reasons of the failure to accept it.
2.) Is there a specific whistleblower protection Act in your country? If not, is there any intent to create such a regulation? What kind of legal regulations deal with crimes of corruption? What kind of sanctions are there against these crimes? Please check your national legislation and jurisdiction.
3.) Is there any anti-corruption Act ? Does it include provisions on whistleblowers? Please describe the main characteristics. When was it adopted, how effective is it? Please use quotations from the press, researches, and public figures.
4.) Please examine whether the concept of public interest exists in the national law of the participant countries, and whether it can be used as a replacement of the whistleblowing scheme, or it might be complementary with it.
(For instance, there is a general whistleblower act, however, the protection of public interest disclosure on wrongdoings that effects the environment is more specified, and differs from the general whistleblower protection.) We expect the participants to examine how the concept of public interest, whether explicitly or implicitly stated, informs and influences the possibility of disclosure information of wrongdoings, and how this concept influences regulatory activity in some particular context. Please search and describe at least 3 special not whistleblower, but public interest disclosure or public interest litigation scheme in your country. We advise you to look around in the field of consumer protection, environmental protection, broadcasting regulation, public health regulation; however other possible fields are welcome as well.
5.) In countries without a specific whistleblower protection, there are often separate regulations on protecting witnesses of crimes, informants, workers pursued by employers, etc. These regulations may/could be used as a kind of whistleblowing protection.
Are there any provisions that might be used for whistleblowing in your national regulation on: a) civil servants, b) workers rights (Labour Law), c) witness protection,

d) public interest or e) any other law? If yes, please describe them.
6.) Is there any regulation that prevents public disclosures ? What kinds of data are per se confident? What kind of data can be made confident? Who decides about making data confident? Is there a possibility for a review?
7.) A chance to evade corruption or taking part in corrupt actions as an employee could be the refusal of specific commands that result in breaking the law. Do employees have the right to reject tasks that might be unlawful?
In what cases is it possible? What protection might they receive?
8.) In some professions (e. g. police officers, state servants), it is often obligatory to report misconducts and malpractices. Is there any regulation that orders the report of unlawful practices ? (E. g. in the case of state servants.) What sanctions are there against those who refuse to report crimes?
9.) Are there public hotlines for reporting corruption or malpractices? Who operates these lines? Is it possible to report anonymously? Do you have any figures on their effectiveness and usefulness?
10.) In almost every organisation, there are internal channels for dealing with conflicts and regulating malpractices. Codes of conduct describe these channels and best practises. How common are codes of conduct in the private and public sector of your country? Are they obligatory? Are there any uniform codes of conduct in particular areas?
11.) Is whistleblowing covered in codes of conduct?
Are whistleblowing cases featured in compliance/annual reports? Please contact at least three of the biggest companies of your country and three state offices and specify, whether they have codes of conduct and if they have registered any cases of whistleblowing. Please describe the regulations in those codes of conduct which can be used for whistleblowing, or disclosing information.
12.) Sarbanes and Oxley Act . The interpretation of the law is not evident: the hotlines under Section 301 of the
SOX can or could be used by subsidiaries of a company present in the United States. Should the subsidiary company establish such channel so the parent company will suffer no harm from the sanctions by the Securities
Exchange Commission? Can an employee working outside the United States submit a report through these channels?
In order to clarify these issues, we require the participants to contact at least three companies registered at the
New York Stock Exchange market, and specify whether these subsidiary companies are required to comply with the Sarbanes and Oxley Act or not. If so, to what extent, and what measures were taken in order to comply with the SOX? Participants are also asked to examine whether employees at a subsidiary faced cross border jurisdictional collision because of the extraterritorial rules in the SOX.
13.) Does your national whistleblower law – or the ones that replace it or complement with it – give authorization to process personal data in order to operate whistleblowing regulation? Does your national law require specific legal norms to impose data processing in whistleblowing schemes (like Article 7 c. of the EU
Data Protection Directive), or is it less flexible, and the balancing between the protection of personal data and other legitimate interests may produce a lawful reporting system (like Article 7 f of the EU Data Protection
Directive.)? Please describe what are or what would be the conditions of legal data processing in a whistleblowing regulation in your national law.
Does foreign legal statute or regulation – like SOX – qualify as a legal obligation by virtue of which data can be processed lawfully? l Did your national authority (data commissionaire, information commission, etc.) responsible for the protection of personal data take a stand on the relationship of public interest disclosures and data protection? If so, please describe his/her/its position.
14.) Please summarize five legal cases on whistleblowing from the last 5 years. How did they become public, what were the motives of the whistleblowers? What information was made public? Did they receive any retaliation? Did they receive any help from the authorities or any support from society? Were there any legal processes?
15.) How well-known is the term whisteblowing ? Are there any other expressions used for whisteblowing or any similar activities? What do they mean?
16.) Are there any figures on the incidence of whistleblowing ? Is it being tracked from time to time? Please check studies, researches on this topic.

17.) Are there any figures on state funds that were saved through whistleblowing? If there are no official statistics, please check articles on whistleblowing cases.
18.) What are the most common types of attitude towards whistleblowing in the press/generally in society?
Was/is there a discussion on the usefulness of whistleblowing? Is there any fear concerning whistleblowing?
19.) What is the public attitude towards reporting to the police and public disclosure? Please refer to queries, researches and other figures.
20.) How often does your national media report whistleblowing cases? Please use the archives of your major papers, online news sites, and check cases from the last five years.
21.) Are there any non-governmental organisations dealing with whistleblowing? Who are they? What do they exactly do?
II. Features/characteristics of whistleblowing. (If there’s a plan afoot for a whistleblowing regulation, please describe the proposed measures.)
1.) Please, define the range of subjects of whistleblowing legislation. Does it cover both private and public sector? Does it cover only crimes of corruption (which are these?), or other wrongdoings as well? (E.g. danger to the environment, any kind of discrimination, etc.)
2.) Who is protected by the whistleblowing legislation? Only people who are involved in the reported case or also witnesses? What about the relatives of whistleblowers? Are there any exceptions from the scope of legislation?
3.) Please, explain the channels of disclosure . In some countries, disclosures must be made inside the organisation. In others, legislation prefers external channels (special authorities, anticorruption office).
Describe the possible channels in your country. Is there a prescribed order for the use of different channels of disclosure? Are there any sanctions for ignoring the proper channels?
4.) Turning to publicity is often the last possibility for whistleblowers. Does your national whistleblower law protect disclosures made in the media ? Can the press or any other types of publicity, e.g. NGOs act as disclosure channels?
5.) One big problem for investigative journalism is that newspapers are often obliged by the law to disclose their informants and witnesses to the authorities. This also means that whistleblowers cannot rely on confidence of the press. Does your national law give protection to sources of the media? Please describe shortly the relevant legal background.
6.) Time is money. Whistleblowers who got fired or suspended will hardly make ends meet if they don’t receive any financial support. This calls for quick procedures. Are there any time limits for the legal procedure in your country? What are they?
7.) Is there a specific whistleblowing / anticorruption institution or oversight body in your country? What sort of investigative power does it / do they have? Who appoints its leaders? How effective is its work?
Is it independent or subordinated to the government?
8.) People often don’t dare to make information public because they are afraid of retaliation. Therefore, protection of personal identity and data is crucial. What measures are taken in your country to ensure confidentiality and the protection of data privacy? Is it possible to report cases anonymously?
9.) Do whistleblowers participate in the process following their report? Are they being informed about the proceeding? If there are no special regulations for whistleblowers, please describe the ways clients can follow the proceeding of their legal affairs.
10.) As mentioned before: the risk of losing one’s job or salary makes the decision whether to report or not even harder. What kind of protection do whistleblowers receive against reprisals? What kind of

remedies might they get? Is there a criminal penalty against those who retaliate against whistleblowers?
Do whistleblowers receive state aid?
11.) Whistleblowing is considered as an act made without any personal concern but for the common good.
However, in some countries, whistleblowers can receive a reward for disclosing information. Is there any encouragement for whistleblowing in your country? (E. g. rewards or getting a certain amount of the money saved by the act of whistleblowing.) If yes, please describe the system of encouraging whistleblowers.
12.) To what extent does the law impose legal liability for false or malicious reporting ?
13.) What are the general ways of legal review in your country? Please describe the legal possibilities of reexamining a legally-binding verdict in your country. What are the ways of reviewing verdicts in whistleblower cases?