Veteran Hungarian Dissidents Issue a New Year’s Message On Orbán Government
January 9, 2012
By: Garrett Nada

Since winning a majority of Parliamentary seats in April 2010, the conservative Fidesz party of Hungary has embarked on an ambitious agenda of passing many new laws and revising the constitution, placing more power in the hands of the government. As reported by Voice of America, some changes have prompted criticism from the United States and the European Union (EU). For example, in February of 2011, Hungary revised its controversial new media law that curtailed freedom of expression to meet EU demands.

On January 2, 2012 a group of thirteen Hungarian human rights and democracy veterans issued an open letter to European institutions detailing specific recent set-backs to democracy in the country. Members of the group include dissidents that opposed the one-party communist regime in Hungary during the 1970s and 1980s.  As posted on the groups’ website, iprotest.hu, the dissidents’ message is largely in reaction to recent actions taken by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government. Since assuming office in May 2010, Orbán and his Fidesz party have passed laws that have been criticized for infringing upon democratic governance.  

According to the letter, the erosion of democracy in Hungary can be attributed to the implementation of the new Hungarian constitution on January 1, 2012, and the introduction of several new laws that weaken the democratic rule of law, remove checks and balances and close autonomous institutions that would have the ability to criticize the government. The dissidents see these developments as disturbing and claim that “since the regime change of 1989… there has never been such an intense concentration of power in the region as in present-day Hungary.” According to Voice of America and Democracy Digest, since late December 2011, tens of thousands of Hungarians have taken to the streets to protest these changes. Officials from both the European Union and the United States have criticized the recent illiberal trends in Hungarian politics.

According to the former political dissidents, Orbán’s government has succeeded in depriving institutions of their ability to control and correct government activity to the extent that the whole state apparatus is subservient to the government instead of the prime minister. The letter covers five broad areas in which Hungary has experienced democratic regression.

Legislative Power

The former dissidents accuse the Fidesz party of modifying Parliament’s house rules, giving it the ability to turn any bill into law and make decisions about issues related to parliamentary protocol. This stifles debate and renders opposition parties irrelevant to the legislative process.

Executive Power

The message criticizes those individual members of Parliament who act without accountability towards ministers or ministries, making no effort to seek consensus with their peers. The dissidents characterize the president as “a man who promptly signs any document pushed on his desk” and a “puppet of the executive power.”

Jurisdiction

The letter warns that the judicial branch of the government is now virtually entirely subject to direct political influence. The recent appointment of judges known to be loyal to the Fidesz party to the Constitutional Court has turned it into a “weightless body” and the chairperson of the National Judiciary Office (NJO) for the last nine years has been the wife of a Fidesz member of the European Parliament. Currently the Chief Prosecutor is also a member of the ruling party.

The Media

The letter echoes the warnings of media rights watchdogs, reported by Democracy Digest, that have cited growing curbs on independent media, such as the denial of an operating license to Hungary’s leading independent radio station. The dissidents attribute the arbitrary granting of broadcasting rights and marked homogeneity in news broadcasts to the policies of the National Media and Telecommunication Agency, chaired by a Fidesz loyalist.

Election Law

The new election law has introduced a system that has favors the candidates of the ruling parties by redrafting constituencies and instituting a new single-round system that will force opposition parties into a coalition. Now all votes from the compensatory list go to the winning party, which will further distort the final outcomes of future elections and cement the Fidesz’s hold on the government.

For now, the dissidents call on the Hungarian people to reinstate democracy and the rule of law through legal means rather than replacing what the current government, which they refer to as a “constitutional dictatorship.” The letter also calls on the EU to take action to help the Hungarian people defend the democratic norms that are supposed to bind the EU together. The dissidents believe that only Hungarian unity and mass support combined with outside support can help the country turn back the tide of one-party rule.

For previous news on Hungary, please see:
Hungary Changes Media Law to Meet EU Demands 

Sources:
iprotest.hu - The decline of democracy – the rise of dictatorship

Voice of America - Tens of Thousands Protest New Constitution in Hungary

Democracy Digest - Dissidents, protestors contest Hungary's democratic regression

Please see below for a full text of the letter:

The decline of democracy – the rise of dictatorship
New Year’s message sent by former Hungarian political dissidents
2 January 2012, Budapest

The undersigned, participants of the erstwhile human rights and democracy movement that opposed the one-party communist regime in the 1970s and 1980s, believe that the Hungarian society is not only the victim of the current economic crisis, but also the victim of its own government. The present government has snatched the democratic political tools from the hands of those who could use these tools to ameliorate their predicament. While chanting empty patriotic slogans, the government behaves in a most unpatriotic way by reducing its citizens to inactivity and impotence.

The constitutional system of Hungary has also sunk into a critical situation. As of the 1st of January 2012, the new constitution of Hungary along with several fundamental laws came into force. Viktor Orbán’s government is intent on destroying the democratic rule of law, removing checks and balances, and pursuing a systematic policy of closing autonomous institutions, including those of civil society, with the potential to criticise its omnipotence. Never since the regime change of 1989 when communist dictatorship was crushed has there been such an intense concentration of power in the region as in present-day Hungary.

Institutions with the authority to hold government activity in check have met a similar fate: Fidesz continuously deprives such institutions of their autonomy, blackmails them for survival, discharges professional management, takes unlawful decisions and molds these institutions so that they can no longer control and correct government activity but, in sharp contrast to their original function, they serve to augment unbridled autocracy. With the removal of the checks and balances, the whole state has become subservient to the government, or rather to the prime minister. The Parliament and the president obediently comply with the dictates of the cabinet. By having their staff radically reshuffled and implementing laws curtailing their competence, the Chief Prosecutor’s Office, the Court of Justice and the Constitution Court act as the lengthened arms of the government. While local councils have lost the better part of their clout, semi-autonomous institutions such as the Court of Auditors, the Hungarian Press Agency, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the National Cultural Fund may well be regarded today as quasi government agencies. Arbitration committees, including the now defunct National Conciliation Council, have been disbanded.

             1. Legislative power
Fidesz created a system that put an end to genuine debates in and outside the Parliament, and by excluding stakeholders the Parliament became a virtual one-party powerhouse. It was stripped of even a semblance of lawful parliamentary protocol. By means of modifying house rules, Fidesz now has the exclusive right to turn any bill into law and make decisions about any issue concerning parliamentary protocol, thus rendering the existence of opposition parties a mere formality. Bills are rushed through legislation with no debate worthy of mention.

             2. Executive power
Since a considerable proportion of proposals and amendments are submitted by individual members of Parliament who make no effort to seek consensus and often ignore relevant ministries, professional and accountable governance ceased to exist. This is a telling sign of the way power-sharing has become but a facade, with ministries and ministers having lost teeth. The president who is supposed to act independently of government and political parties, thereby being a living symbol of constitutional order, is a man who promptly signs any document pushed on his desk, and by disregarding the constitutional role bestowed on him, he is no more than a puppet of the executive power.

             3. Jurisdiction
Numerous changes in legislation have been made that testify the direct political intentions to ignore democratic rules of law.

The Constitutional Court, the ultimate institution to safeguard legality, has been gradually turned into a weightless body. The number of judges has been increased with members known to be loyal to the ruling parties (including a former minister and a member of Parliament, both being Fidesz party members). The scope of the Court has been narrowed, partly by depriving it of arbitration on economic issues.      

Established as part of the judiciary reform, the National Judiciary Office (NJO) is under direct political influence. Instead of being an independent professional body, the chairperson of NJO, who happens to be the wife of a Fidesz member of the European Parliament, has the exclusive right to appoint, delegate and promote judges, as well as to determine which court deals with which case. The chair of NJO has been elected for nine years by a two-third parliamentary majority, and short of a qualified majority in the future, the chair may remain in her post indefinitely.      

While retirement age has been raised across the board, a significant proportion of leading judges has been forced into retirement. The judiciary has thus become existentially dependent.     
  
The Chief Prosecutor, who has the exclusive right to decide which case may be forwarded to the Court of Justice and which court should hear it, is a politician of the ruling party.    
  
In the future, suspects and the accused may be deprived of the opportunity to consult their solicitors.      
This new system marks the end of independent jurisdiction in Hungary.

             4. The media
Fidesz intends to place the entire media under its control and regulation, hindering any form of an impartial, analytical and critical judgment of its policy. With this in mind,

Originally destined to be an impartial forum, the public media has been forced to serve the government parties. Instead of professionalism, the only criterion for its continued existence is political loyalty.     

News service has been centralised: the same news is broadcast in every channel.     

Recently established and authorised with unprecedented power, the National Media and Telecommunication Agency, led by its chairman, a Fidesz loyalist, may exercise wide-ranging regulatory and sanctioning rights.      

Radio frequencies and television broadcasting rights are conferred in an arbitrary fashion.  
    
Independent press may be levied enormous fines, thus urging it to exercise self-censure. Destined to lose state-sponsored advertisers as well as private ones scared of retaliation, disobedient newspapers even run the risk of going bankrupt.    
 
             5. Election law
Democracy is posited on the condition that anyone may be voted out of office through peaceful measures. The new election law significantly restricts the opportunity to satisfy the will of citizens and realise a democratic change in the power structure. Instead of seeking consensus and a harmonisation of interests, Fidesz is intent on destroying rival political forces with the purpose of perpetuating its own power.

Motivated by political considerations, the new election law redrafted constituencies, thus creating a system which favours candidates of the ruling parties. Undeserving of constitutional democracies, no independent body has the right to veto the new distribution of constituencies.  
    
Fidesz has taken the unprecedented step to ensure that all the votes from the compensatory list go to the winning party; ignoring the will of the electorate, this clause will distort the final outcome of the election.      

The new single-round system will force the rivalling opposition parties into a coalition.   
    
Fidesz does its best to criminalise its rivals: 21years after the regime change a new law has been passed in which the Hungarian Socialist Party, a democratic party of the Hungarian Parliament, has been deemed guilty as being the legal successor of the former communist party.

In Hungary, liberal democracy as interpreted in the West has come to an end, the autonomy of power centres has become a formality. The government is thoroughly antidemocratic by according no respect to the sanctity of private property, eliminating local councils, and pushing all channels of social mobility, public and higher education under its political control. It seems obvious that the aim of the present government is to overhaul the entire society and, with recourse to threats and blackmail, to create a country rendered incapable and cowardly to defy its dictatorial rule. Under such conditions, Hungary would have stood no chance in 2004 to join the European Union, the community of the Western democracies. Regretfully, Hungary can only expect further isolation, impoverishment and hopelessness in the future.

However, instead of searching for an alternative to replace this constitutional dictatorship, we had better consider ways in which we can get rid of it within the bounds of legality. The question is whether there is any chance at all to break out and reinstate the rule of law under the legal constraints imposed by Fidesz.

The advocates of democracy and the rule of law within and outside Hungary must not acquiesce in having the government of a member state of the European Union crush these universal values. Nor should the European Union just sit back and watch as it is being held hostage by an outdated, provincial tyrant. It is in the interest of both Hungary and the European Union to make a stand against the prime minister of Hungary. The leaders of the European Union are right in their decision to tighten intergration, but this step should be taken not only to combat the financial crisis but also to challenge political crises and risks. The European Union may disintegrate not only for economic reasons but for reasons of pursuing disparate and antidemocratic policies as well.

As we regard ourselves simultaneously as Hungarian and European citizens, we wish to avoid a clash of identities. We reject any political command that we give up our "dual citizenship”. If choose we need, our choice will be between the values of democracy and dictatorship – just as we did at the time of communist dictatorship. We are aware that the idea of a common Europe was born as an economic project, but this project is no more than wishful thinking unless its value system is accounted for and enforced, and lack thereof gets punished.

We are convinced that Hungary can become a country where the rule of law is reinstated. However, we must not forget that Fidesz, busy building a one-party dictatorship at an ever-growing speed, will never surrender unless compelled by the political representatives of Hungarian democrats, in compliance with the legal norms of democracy on which the European Union is founded.

The dictatorial rule has already reached a point of no return; under the present circumstances our country is unlikely to be able to find its way back to the rule of law. However, a debate along these lines is not timely when democratic forces are faced with the daunting task of uniting forces – in and outside the Parliament, with one another. We cannot afford the luxury of learning the lesson after a lost election.

Unity for the time being – and for a long time hence – implies obtaining mass support. The size of this support will determine the means available for the reinstatement of democracy and the rule of law. Beyond raising its voice against the economic adventurism pursued by Orbán, Europe and the whole world will offer help for Hungarian democracy only after unity has been achieved with mass support to back it up.

Europe is at a crossroads too. Hungary is a sad example of what may happen wherever there is a concentration of crisis tendencies, aggravated by attempts to resolve problems caused by an economic and social crisis with authoritarian means and a policy of nationalistic isolation. Instead of prosperity and stability, such a policy can only lead to suppression, conflict and turmoil. The desperate situation of present-day Hungary should be a warning for all of us: if Europe is prepared to help Hungary, it will also help itself.

Attila Ara-Kovács, journalist
György Dalos, writer
Gábor Demszky, former Mayor of Budapest
Miklós Haraszti, former OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, former MP
Róza Hodosán, former MP
Gábor Iványi, pastor, former MP
János Kenedi, historian
György Konrád, writer
Bálint Magyar, former Minister of Education
Imre Mécs, former MP
Sándor Radnóti, philosopher
László Rajk, architect, former MP
Sándor Szilágyi, writer on photography

www.ccd21.org