Deportation from Hungary and the Schengen Area: When Only a Few Hours Are Left

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Why a lawyer cannot work miracles at the last minute.

Unfortunately, we see a similar situation at least once or twice every month. Last week, it happened again.

A foreign client received a Hungarian decision on August 13. He was ordered to leave Hungary and received a three-year entry and stay ban.

This was not a simple administrative misunderstanding. His previous legal right to stay had ended months earlier. He still remained in the European Union and worked there. Later, the Hungarian authorities started immigration proceedings against him.

According to the decision, he also knew that he no longer had a valid legal right to stay. So by the time the case reached us, there was already an admitted illegal stay, a deportation decision and a three-year entry and stay ban.

He had eight days to challenge the decision before the court.

He first contacted us on Monday, August 17, at the end of the working day. We replied the same day and asked him to send us the decision.

He did not read our reply at that time. Two days later, on Wednesday, August 19, at around 10 p.m., my WhatsApp made a sound. I was watching TV. I looked at the message. The decision had finally arrived. But there is an important difference here.

Just because a lawyer sees and reads a WhatsApp message at 10 p.m., it does not mean that the law office is open at 10 p.m.

And sending a document does not mean that its legal review starts immediately. The next day was August 20. One of Hungary's most important national holidays and a public holiday.

Hungary also has an unusual system where, around some public holidays, a working day is moved to an earlier Saturday. This can create a long weekend. It may not be obvious if you are outside Hungary, but offices and public authorities are normally closed during these days.

And it was August. Summer. Holiday season. We were not working either. :)

Still, on Friday morning, we reviewed the decision to understand the case and see whether there was a realistic way we could help.

We did not even ask for a consultation or document review fee before doing this. And then the problem became very clear. The eight-day deadline to challenge the decision expired that day.

We did not take the case. Not because we looked at the decision for five minutes and decided that nothing could be done. Quite the opposite. This is not something you can decide in five minutes.

We would have needed to review the full decision, check the legal background and decide whether there was a legally reasonable argument against the deportation or the three-year ban.

This was especially important because the client had knowingly stayed in the EU without a legal right to stay for several months. And if there was a good legal argument, we would still have needed to prepare the court application.

This is not a few minutes of work. By the time we could have started all of this, only a few hours were left from the original eight days. This was no longer simply an urgent case.

There was not enough time left to do the work properly.

WhatsApp is always open. A law office is not.

WhatsApp is fast and practical. We use it a lot with international clients. But just because you can send a document at 10 p.m. does not mean that a lawyer will start working on it at 10 p.m.

Sometimes a case really does need immediate attention. We may need to move other work, work outside normal office hours, on a weekend or even during a holiday.

In that situation, the legal fee may be higher.

And yes, sometimes we are told that we are expensive. If we say that there is no longer enough time to take a case responsibly, someone may also think that we are not flexible or helpful enough. 

Maybe. But neither is a good reason to accept work when there is simply not enough time to do it properly.

An urgent fee can make space in a lawyer's calendar. It cannot create time. A few hours cannot become two working days.

If you receive a deportation decision in Hungary

There is really only one practical lesson from this story.

If you are in this situation and are thinking about challenging the decision, send the full decision with your first message to the lawyer and tell them exactly when you received it.

If the lawyer replies and asks for more information, answer as soon as possible. And with a short deadline, check the Hungarian calendar too.

Weekend. National holiday. Public holiday. Summer holiday season.

They can all matter. A lawyer can work quickly. A lawyer can take an urgent case. Sometimes a lawyer may even look at your decision during a holiday before sending you an invoice. :)

But a lawyer cannot give you back the time that has already been lost.