Commission Report 2002 (Hungary)
Parliament has
continued to function smoothly and further progress has been made on
legislative work with good overall results regarding alignment with the
acquis communautaire.
Following the elections, a new legislative programme started in June 2002,
with sessions every week instead of every third week. The new House is now
composed of four political parties. As no extremist party passed the
electoral threshold of 5%, none is represented in Parliament. The
constitutional obligation to ensure direct parliamentary representation of
minorities in a systematic manner remains unfulfilled. The Hungarian
Constitutional Court had ruled in 1992 that the absence of such a system was
unconstitutional. However, in the recent elections, four members of
Parliament of Romani origin were elected via the national party lists.
The four Ombudsmen continued to fulfil their mandate in the areas of civil
and political rights (the responsibility of the Ombudsman and his Deputy),
national and ethnic minorities, education, data protection and freedom of
information. The Ombudsmen are elected for six years by a two-thirds majority
of votes in Parliament. The last vote took place in December 2001, when the
Ombudsman for data protection was elected.
The Ombudsmen are responsible for investigating violations of
constitutional rights and for initiating general or individual measures to
remedy such violations. However, the Ombudsmen are not entitled to impose
legal sanctions on perpetrators of infringements of constitutional
rights.
Modifications to the Law on Ombudsmen came into force in December 2001,
clarifying the scope for control. Thus, the Ombudsmen are entitled to control
all governmental authorities, as well as a number of other organisations,
such as the public service providers or public prosecutors.
© European Commission; last modified 2003-05-21
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