{"id":518,"date":"2014-11-20T15:50:18","date_gmt":"2014-11-20T15:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/when-the-government-writes-its-own-constitution-thoughts-on-hungarys-new-constitution\/"},"modified":"2015-07-08T12:39:04","modified_gmt":"2015-07-08T12:39:04","slug":"when-the-government-writes-its-own-constitution-thoughts-on-hungarys-new-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/when-the-government-writes-its-own-constitution-thoughts-on-hungarys-new-constitution\/","title":{"rendered":"When the government writes its own constitution: Thoughts on Hungary’s new constitution"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span> Commentary<\/p>\n

On 18 April 2011, with a two-thirds majority of the governing coalition of Fidesz and KDNP, the Hungarian parliament adopted a new constitution. This constitution seeks to lock in the dominant position of prime minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n’s Fidesz party and his allies for many years to come and, additionally, its tone is contrary to the idea of Open Citizenship.<\/p>\n

Drafting and adoption of the constitution was extremely flawed and deliberately rushed. The draft text was submitted to the parliament only a few weeks before it was to be voted upon.[1]<\/a> Thus, a broad debate within the parliament, in the media or by the general public was not possible \u2013 nor intended. There was no serious dialogue between the majority coalition and the minority parties nor were the people asked in a constitutional referendum. Only a multiple-choice survey (!) has been sent to the citizens \u2013 with no clear information about its impact or result. Additionally, the very constitutionality of the new text is in question, as Orb\u00e1n’s majority only gained the ability to introduce the new constitution by recently dropping an article that required a four-fifths majority, an act often criticized as unlawful and unconstitutional.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

Keeping the power structure<\/strong><\/p>\n

The new constitution is aimed to lock in the dominant position of the current government. Many constitutional changes demonstrate this intention. Here are four.<\/p>\n

First, the powers of the constitutional court were substantially restricted in important policy areas such as budget and tax laws. This was Orb\u00e1n\u2019s reaction to court rulings that declared some of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s previous legislation as unconstitutional. This is true e.g. for a law that was to apply a 98-percent tax to all public-sector severance payments amounting to 2 million Forints (. The court found such retroactive legislation unconstitutional, as it would breach employee contracts.<\/p>\n

Second, the scope of action of future governments was severely restricted by making the two-thirds majority a requirement for the adoption for so-called cardinal laws, among them laws on taxes or pension reform.<\/p>\n

Third, the president of the republic \u2013 now a Fidesz man \u2013 has gained a much stronger role in the Hungarian political system. The president can now initiate laws and referenda, proposes the prime minister and the president of the highest court (curia) and has the right to dissolve the parliament.<\/p>\n

Finally, the role of instruments of direct democracy has been weakened. Most severe, there is no longer the possibility for a citizen-initiated referendum on constitutional amendments, thus making it impossible to change even minor topics of the Orb\u00e1n document. Also, referenda on military operations or taxes are now forbidden.<\/p>\n

A (racial) preamble and ethnic citizenship<\/p>\n

The constitution\u2019s preamble is a racial pamphlet called \u2018National Avowal of Faith\u2019. It commences with the thousand-year-old story of king Stefan, highlighting the \u2018magnificent intellectual creations of Hungarian people\u2019 and declaring Hungary as a part of the \u2018Christian Europe\u2019. It makes reference to a diffuse \u2018historical constitution\u2019 and the \u2018holy crown\u2019 but fails to include concepts of \u2018democracy\u2019, \u2018human rights\u2019 or \u2018republic\u2019.<\/p>\n

This avowal of faith has to be read in line with the article on citizenship (Article G). Citizenship is defined ethnically. For example, only children of Hungarian citizens will become Hungarian citizens by birth (see T\u00f3th and Au\u00dfenminister<\/strong> in this issue). Additionally, citizenship law has become a cardinal law, which means that even in the case of a new government, Orb\u00e1n and his allies could block attempts to adopt modern and liberal citizenship laws.<\/p>\n

The role of other nationalities and minorities living in Hungary is respected in the constitution. However, only Hungarian citizens have the right to free denomination and to preserve their identity.<\/p>\n

There is a lot of criticism on the Hungarian constitution, but mainly outside Hungary. Hopefully the Hungarians will wake up before it is too late: even today their scope of action is very limited.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Council of Europe, Venice Commission, OPINION ON THREE LEGAL QUESTIONS ARISING IN THE PROCESS OF DRAFTING THE NEW CONSTITUTION OF HUNGARY, p. 4.\u00a0[<\/p>\n

2] \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 See e.g. Arato, Andrew: Orb\u00e1n\u2019s (Counter-)Revolution of the Voting Booth and How it was Made Possible, in http:\/\/verfassungsblog.de\/orbns-counter-revolution-voting-booth\/#more-1668.<\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 18 April 2011, with a two-thirds majority of the governing coalition of Fidesz and KDNP, the Hungarian parliament adopted a new constitution. This constitution seeks to lock in the dominant position of prime minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n’s Fidesz party and his allies for many years to come and, additionally, its tone is contrary to the idea of Open Citizenship<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":1199,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[142],"tags":[178],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1200,"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions\/1200"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oc.citizensforeurope.org\/ojs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}