MINELRES: Roma Press Center (Budapest) Newsletter, 23 September 2003

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Original sender: Esther Holbrook <romapres@axelero.hu>


Roma Press Center
Roma Sajt�k�zpont
Budapest, Hungary
Tel: +36 1 321-1801
Fax: +36 1 321-1810
Mobile: 06 30 431-5983
http://www.romapage.c3.hu


NEWSLETTER
23 September 2003
 
17th September - Government Proposes Registration of Minority Voters -
(RSK)

The Government's preliminary draft of an amendment to the Act of
National and Ethnic Minorities Rights (77/1993) now includes strong
inclinations toward introducing special minority electoral rules. The
new amendment would require that voters who intended to participate in
the minority election register themselves. By making voters profess
their national or ethnic community, the government hopes to discourage
abuse of the minority voting system by majority population. In the past,
there have been notable cases where the majority population has used the
relaxed registration policies to vote in the candidate that suits their
interests (see Jaszladany case, RSK newsletter, 2002 October 8). By
making this proposed amendment, the Government is making a stand against
what it sees as unconstitutional present practise relating to this.
Nevertheless, mandatory registration of minority voters worries many
people as it may lead to other discriminatory abuses. The ombudsman of
data protection has stated that he believes sensitive data of minority
electoral rolls can be managed properly in case they introduce such a
system. On the other hand, the National Roma Self-government doesn't
support the idea of registration at all. According to the draft
proposal, representatives of local self-government would be elected from
a "small list" of candidates. However, national minority
self-governments would be by "Electoral College", in proportion to the
distribution of votes for local minority self-governments. Parliament
has obliged government to introduce the bill due to recent electoral
abuses and scandals. According to Mr. Antal Heizer, the president of the
Office for National and Ethnic Minorities, the government will discuss
the proposal soon and the bill will be introduced to Parliament by the
end of this year. (See today's RPC Newsletter Background)

18th September - Bulgaria Adopts Anti-Discrimination Legislation -
(ERRC)
The Bulgarian Parliament adopted a comprehensive anti-discrimination law
on 16 September. The legislation bans discrimination on a number of
grounds including race, gender, religion, disability, age, and sexual
orientation. It also provides that in prima facie cases of
discrimination, the defendant maintains the burden of proof in showing
that discrimination did not occur. An anti-discrimination commission is
to be established with specialised subcommittees for both racial and
gender discrimination. The commission will consist of 9 members (5 of
them elected by Parliament and 4 appointed by the President) and will
have the power to investigate complaints and issue binding rulings as
well as to impose significant judgements on perpetrators. The law
includes provisions such that more than one victim can enter into a
complaint, in cases where the discriminatory abuse has harmed a group of
people. The law is in harmony with European Council of the European
Union Directives 2000/43, 2000/78, 2002/73, which now provides the
current standards on anti-discrimination law in Europe. Bulgarian law,
to date, has been scattered and varied amongst a range of local legal
provisions and has remained for the most part ineffective. The new
Anti-discrimination Act consolidates Bulgaria's anti-discrimination
legal framework into a single act, thus improving the chances for real
and comprehensive ability to enforce policies in practice.

19th September - Lingering of Holocaust Compensation Process Suggests
Misuse of Funds - (RSK)
There is room to benefit out of the lingering compensation process for
Roma Holocaust survivors in Hungary; for criminals, that is. Future
beneficiaries of the Austrian indemnity programme have already been made
the victims of such a crime. A group of con artists in Piliscsaba (Pest
County) recently made visits to all potential beneficiaries (those Roma
alive during WWII) in that area who had not filled out the application
forms in time for the deadline. The Roma were told that the culprits
could collect the claims for them, for a 50% commission charge. They
also convinced them that if they didn't agree to their terms, they
wouldn't get anything at all. The con artists then filled out the 6-page
form for their victims, writing down all their information and taking
possession of their identity cards (in order to make copies). They
provided their own address as the return address on all the application
forms. The scam was discovered when one of the victims became suspicious
and discussed it with the local Roma self-government representative. The
Roma self-government representative, Anyalai Bela, informed members of
the local volunteer police force who then took it upon themselves to
question the 3 culprits. All the identity papers were confiscated, and
no actual damage had yet been done. However, no charges have been
pressed against the con artists.  

This case ended (almost) happily. However, the fact that such a
situation could occur suggests that any lingering in the processes for
recovering compensation can only lead to a greater risk of such abuses
and less control over proper management and distribution of funds.
Within Austrian compensation programme, indemnity claims are currently
being assessed. Both the German and Swiss programmes began three years
ago and have not yet been completed. The continued lagging of the
process could prove fatal its target persons. As time passes, the
intended recipients grow older and the amount of money continues to
devalue. Since the beginning of the German and Swiss programmes, ten
percent of the Roma Holocaust survivor applicants have died. 

Cultural Events of the Week

.....................

RPC Newsletter Background
Minority Representation in Hungary

The Hungarian Act on National and Ethnic Minority Rights (77/1993) was
adopted ten years ago. Besides guaranteeing individual rights, it
acknowledges the collective rights and cultural autonomy of the thirteen
national and ethnic communities recognised in Hungary. These communities
are entitled to elect a local minority self-government representative
within local settlements. They can choose from "small lists" of
candidates who formally run as representative legal entities. Local
minority self-governments have two essential rights: Firstly, they can
act as managers for local public institutions which provide special
programmes for minorities (for example any schools, kindergartens,
cultural centres, or other such local projects, can not go forward
without the approval of the affected local minority self-government.
Secondly, the educational programme of the area cannot be introduced
without the consent of local minority self-government representative.
When the local representatives have been selected, the local
self-government sends one elector to the national electoral assemblies.
At this assembly, the representatives of the national self-government
are elected. 

Since, legislation hasn't transferred any right or responsibility for
allocating public tasks to the minority self-governments, they cannot be
budgeted by normative subsidies. Nevertheless local self-governments are
provided with small amount of state subsidy. In most of the cases, their
operational costs are must be covered by local municipalities, upon
discretionary terms. Naturally, this leaves the local minority
self-governments at the mercy of local municipalities benevolence, which
makes it almost impossible to even assert their limited "powers". The
actual goals and intentions of the various minority representatives in
Hungary remain diverse based on the needs of the communities. The
fundamental task for the German, Slovak, Serb, Croatian, and Romanian
national communities are to re-establish elementary and secondary school
networks in their mother-tongue. Since the beginning of the 1960s, many
such schools have been closed down or transformed into schools teaching
only in Hungarian. Most of Germans and Slovaks in Hungary lost their
native language only within three generations. 

For Roma communities, the required criteria that would demonstrate the
efficiency of the self-government system was different. Their task is;
to influence local educational and welfare policies; to prevent or
reduce educational segregation; to represent the Roma community's
interests in the case of local and regional development plans; and to
combat administrative discrimination. In many cases, Roma minority
self-governments were able to articulate the interests and needs of
their communities in legal terms, but they rarely managed to actually
influence fundamental local decisions.

While drafting the bill at the beginning of the 1990's, minority
communities adamantly rejected the mandatory registration of their
voters for the minority electoral rosters. They feared that the
information would be used for other discriminatory abuses. But in fact,
another abuse took place. Significantly more people "voted" in the
minority elections than were recorded as members of those local
communities. For example, in 1998, entire representation of Romanian
community was "monopolised" by intended misuse so that to make profit.
Four years later, majority population politicians in Jaszladany,
(Jasz-Nagykun-Szolnok County) headed by mayor's wife mayor, "ran" for
the Roma self-government position (see Jaszladany case, RSK newsletter,
2002 October 8) and majority of the settlement voted on them. They were
able to eliminate authentic Roma representation and to remove any legal
obstacle they might have incurred from a real Roma representative from
establishing a segregated foundation school.