MINELRES: Minority News Hungary March 2004

[MINELRES moderator]

Original sender: Solymosi Judit <solymosij@mail.datanet.hu>


Office for National and Ethnic Minorities
Budapest, Hungary


Selection of news on national and ethnic minorities in Hungary

March 2004 



Bill on the amendment of minority-related legal provisions approved by
the Government

On its session of 3 March 2004, the Hungarian Government approved the
bill No T/9126 concerning the election of minority self-government
representatives on the one hand, and the amendment of some acts related
to national and ethnic minorities living in Hungary, on the other hand.
The bill will be discussed by five different standing commissions of
Parliament and its first plenary discussion in Parliament will
expectedly take place at the end of March 2004.

Having assessed the experiences accumulated during the last ten years,
the Government is of the opinion that there is no need to adopt a
completely new law, and it is sufficient to submit an act amending the
old regulations.

Compared to the present legal provisions, the bill proposes several
important modifications partly required by the imminent accession of
Hungary to the European Union. Here below we shall present some features
of the bill proposed, stressing, however, that after its discussion by
Parliament there will certainly be non-negligible changes in the text.  

The bill contains a definition on national and ethnic minorities that is
different from that of the Act No LXXVII of year 1993 on the rights of
national and ethnic minorities with respect to the requirement of
Hungarian citizenship, and in this way it widens the personal scope of
the regulation. Thus the paragraphs in question would be as follows:
"This Act applies to all persons of Hungarian citizenship living in the
Republic of Hungary, to the citizens of other member states of the
European Union as well as to other persons having a refugee, immigrant
or settled person status who consider themselves as members of any
national or ethnic minority and to the communities of these people."
However, as the bill has not eliminated the criterion requiring from the
minority community a history of at least one century of living in the
Republic of Hungary, the thirteen minority groups as listed in the 1993
Act would remain unchanged.

In conformity with the Act on equal treatment and the promotion of equal
opportunities, the bill prohibits all violation of the requirement of
equal treatment as regards minorities.

The bill stipulates the right of minorities to set up minority
self-governments at local, regional (county and Budapest) and national
level, which would mean the introduction of a medium-level
representation as it had already been requested by the minorities for
some years.

The tasks of minority self-governments are specified in the bill in a
more detailed and more pragmatic way. These specifications aim at
facilitating the founding or the take-over of minority educational and
cultural institutions by the minority self-governments. The economic and
management activities of the national minority self-governments are
regulated in a more secure, more monitorable and more transparent
system. The status and the tasks of the Offices of the national minority
self-governments are also specified so as to ensure the continuous
running of activities (the maintenance and operation of institutions)
even if the national minority self-government itself gets dissolved.

Some of the most important modifications contained in the bill concern
the election of minority self-governments. Direct elections at all
levels (i.e. the elimination of the system of electoral meetings for the
election of the national minority self-government) would allow
proportional representation. The institutions of the 'minority
spokesperson' and the 'indirectly elected minority self-government'
would also be abolished, as they did not meet the expectations. The
number of representatives to be elected at local and regional level
would be respectively 5 and 9, while at national level - depending on
the number of local minority elections held - it would vary between 15
and 39. Some regulations on the incompatibility of elected
representatives as well as the obligation of members of national
minority self-governments to make regular declarations on their assets
have been also introduced.

Art. 68. par. (4) of the Hungarian Constitution stipulates that national
and ethnic minorities have the right to establish minority
self-governments. In conformity with this, in order to ensure that only
members of the given minority can vote and be elected, the bill proposes
to introduce another new element, namely the registration of minority
voters. Participation at the minority elections would be allowed only to
those who made themselves register on the list of minority voters. One
person can be registered only on one of the lists. 

Minority elections will be held every four years. Locally they will be
organised only in those settlements where a specific registering
committee has been set up and where the number of people registered has
reached 30. Registering committees will be set up by the national
minority self-governments in settlements designated by them. At least 10
inhabitants declaring themselves to belong to the given minority and
living in a non-designated settlement may initiate the election of a
registering committee.

Requests of persons wanting to become included in the register of
minority voters should be submitted personally to the registering
committee. They should contain the name, the address, the identification
number and the signature of the person in question as well as also
his/her declaration on his minority affiliation. This declaration should
be supported by other optional statements to be ticked (language
knowledge, knowledge of the culture and the traditions of the minority,
membership and/or function in a minority civil organisation or in a
minority self-government, doing voluntary work for the given minority
community or carrying out other activities that can be related to the
minority). The registering committee would decide within 8 days on the
acceptation of the request. In case of a negative decision the
applicants can appeal to the court.

At regional and national level, where the county, respectively the
country represents one constituency, all settlements with a minority
register containing at least one person will make part of that
constituency.

Ballot-papers at local elections would contain the names of the
candidates, and the five persons having received the greatest number of
votes would be elected. Ballots used at regional and national level
would contain the names of the organisations that have fielded
candidates, and minority voters would have to vote on the lists of these
organisations. This element would increase the role of minority civil
organisations in the election process.


Government decision adopted on a new package of medium-term measures for
Roma integration

On its session of 3 March 2004, the Hungarian Government approved the
new package of medium-term measures to improve the living conditions and
the social status of the Roma population. The main areas of the
programme include the enforcement of equal rights, the attenuation of
prejudices, the elimination of segregation in education, the improvement
of the quality of education, the development of employment
opportunities, ensuring better access to, and development of knowledge
on, computer sciences, the improvement of life quality, health and
housing conditions, the preservation of Roma culture, identity and
languages. At a press conference, Political State Secretary on Roma
Issues Laszlo Teleki explained that resources ensuring the
implementation of the programme would come from the responsible
ministries as well as from the budget of the National Development Plan.