CHANGES IN PUBLIC LAW II.
Prof. Dr. Gábor Schweitzer
HISTORICAL CONSTITUTION VS NEW DIRECTION OF PUBLIC LAW: AUTHORITARIAN
CONSTITUTIONAL IDEAS AND THE HUNGARIAN CONSTITUTION BEFORE WWII
István Egyed (1886-1966)
❖ Significant characteristic features of the new direction of
constitutional law
❖ strengthening the power of the head of state,
❖ marginalization of parliamentary and party system,
❖ arising idea of corporatist bodies within the structure of the
legislation,
❖ restriction of immunity of MP,
❖ centralisation of public administration,
❖ independence of the government from representative bodies,
❖ endowment of the government with extensive legislative powers
HISTORICAL CONSTITUTION VS NEW DIRECTION OF PUBLIC LAW: AUTHORITARIAN
CONSTITUTIONAL IDEAS AND THE HUNGARIAN CONSTITUTION BEFORE WWII
István Egyed (1886-1966)
❖ The need to reform the Hungarian constitution
❖ Hungarianism
❖ Our Constitution (1943)
❖ differences between the fascist and national socialist systems and
the Hungarian constitutional system
❖ Military, economic and political alliance of interests with the Axis
powers did not necessarily have to include the transformation of the
Hungarian constitutional system, although he did acknowledge certain
overlaps
István Csekey (1889-1963)
❖ The German Führer State (1936)
❖ Weimar Constitution was not formally repealed, although it was
profoundly changed by major constitutional laws
❖ Enabling Act
❖ Referendum Act
❖ Act on the Unity of Party and State
❖ Reich Building Act
❖ Act on the Head of State of the German Reich
❖ Reich Governors Act
❖ Act on the Structure of the Armed Forces
❖ Municipal Act
❖ Nuremberg Race Laws
HISTORICAL CONSTITUTION VS NEW DIRECTION OF PUBLIC LAW: AUTHORITARIAN
CONSTITUTIONAL IDEAS AND THE HUNGARIAN CONSTITUTION BEFORE WWII
István Csekey (1889-1963)
❖ The Constitution of Hungary (1943)
❖ Hungary's historical constitution should develop its own ancient
constitutional institutions
❖ No need to import foreign experiments
❖ To divide Hungary into racial elements would be a denial of
Hungarianness
❖ Act XV of 1941 was intended 'to protect the Hungarian race from further
intermarriage with the Jews'
HISTORICAL CONSTITUTION VS NEW DIRECTION OF PUBLIC LAW: AUTHORITARIAN
CONSTITUTIONAL IDEAS AND THE HUNGARIAN CONSTITUTION BEFORE WWII
Kálmán Molnár (1881-1961): Is there still a Hungarian genius?
(1938)
❖ He considered the attempted imitation of totalitarian state
systems in Hungary to be dangerous because the submission to
totalitarian ideas would undermine the foundations of the
country's survival as an independent state. What need could
there be for an independent Hungarian statehood if there were
no separate Hungarian 'state-organising genius'?
HISTORICAL CONSTITUTION VS NEW DIRECTION OF PUBLIC LAW: AUTHORITARIAN
CONSTITUTIONAL IDEAS AND THE HUNGARIAN CONSTITUTION BEFORE WWII
Béla Török (1914-2012): The Hungarian and the autoritarian
constitution (1940)
❖ Both the Hungarian constitutional approach and the
authoritarian constitutional approach were characterised by a
public-political orientation and the assertion of the 'popular
element’
❖ Adoption of certain unspecified principles of the authoritarian
constitution with the constraint that the interests of 'the
Hungarian spirit and the spirit of the Hungarian state’ should be taken
into account
HISTORICAL CONSTITUTION VS NEW DIRECTION OF PUBLIC LAW: AUTHORITARIAN
CONSTITUTIONAL IDEAS AND THE HUNGARIAN CONSTITUTION BEFORE WWII
❖ Act XXV of 1920 (’numerus clausus’)
❖ Limited the proportion of Jews admitted to universities and colleges of higher education to
the proportion of Jews within the general population
❖ Act XV of 1938 (’first anti-Jewish law’)
❖ reduced the permitted ratio of Jews in the so-called freelance professions (e.g. solicitors,
public notaries, engineers, journalists, actors) to 20%, as well as at financial, commercial and
industrial ventures employing more than ten people
❖ not only members of the denomination of Judaism, but also people who had converted
after 31 July 1919 were to be considered Jews
❖ Act IV of 1939 (’second anti-Jewish law’)
❖ reduced the proportion of Jews employed by industrial and commercial firms to 12%,
❖ proportion of Jews admitted to universities and colleges of higher education was limited to
6% with the exception of the technical university, to which a limit of 12% was applied
REACTIONS TO ANTI-JEWISH LEGISLATION
REACTIONS TO ANTI-JEWISH LEGISLATION
Albert Kaas (1885-1961): The Jewish Question
(1938)
❖ Equality of rights and human rights were respected by the states
only to the extent that they did not endanger the universal
interests of the community. When the real public interest so
required, the principle of equality of rights was restricted.
Vilmos Szontagh (1885-1962)
❖ The Jewish Law and the Hungarian Constitution
(1939)
❖ The Jewish Law from a Jurisprudence Perspective (1939)
❖ The question of unconstitutionality can arise against any law if the
provisions of the law in question are not in accordance with the
constitutional view of the time of its adoption.
❖ When Act XVII of 1867 on Jewish Emancipation was adopted, the
'liberal constitutional approach' was still dominant, whereas at the time
when Act IV of 1939 was adopted the 'nationalist constitutional approach’
was already predominant, a view that does not tolerate the selfserving
assertion of classes, orders or races at the expense of the
’ideal of nationalism’ and ’national statehood’
REACTIONS TO ANTI-JEWISH LEGISLATION
Móric Tomcsány (1878-1951): Public Law of Hungary (1943)
❖ He considered the purpose of the anti-Jewish laws to be the
harmonization of the economic and social position of Jews – which
had jeopardized the development of 'the Hungarian race and the
Hungarian nation' – with their proportion within the national
population
❖ all restrictions are acceptable, provided they were truly necessitated by
the 'vital interest of the nation'
REACTIONS TO ANTI-JEWISH LEGISLATION
REACTIONS TO ANTI-JEWISH LEGISLATION
István Egyed (1886-1966): Our Constitution (1943)
❖ The restrictions introduced in the economy, in social and public life
were aimed at 'maintaining the Christian character of the state', 'protecting the
purity of the race' and 'ensuring a leading role for the majority'
❖ The principle does not preclude 'certain groups of the national society
being constrained to proportional success'
❖ Pesti Napló (Pest Journal), 5. 5. 1938: 'We are impelled by our
Christian faith, our patriotic convictions and our insistence on the country’s
European convictions and our national independence to abide by the
principle of the equality of citizens before the law, achieved by the best
minds of European Hungarians during the most beautiful period of our
history'
❖ Kálmán Molnár (1881-1961), Polner Ödön (1865-1961):
explicitly rejected the first and second anti-Jewish laws
REACTIONS TO ANTI-JEWISH LEGISLATION
THE FORMATION OF THE SECOND HUNGARIAN REPUBLIC (1946-1949)
❖ Act I of 1946 on the form of government of Hungary: republic
❖ Act I of 1945
❖ Provisional National Assembly (Ideiglenes Nemzetgyűlés) is
the sole representative of state sovereignty
❖ Passed a resolution on sovereignty, provided for the
provisional exercise of the rights of the head of state, elected
the members of the Provisional National Government, and
gave authorization to the government to conclude an
armistice agreement
❖ Act III of 1945
❖ National High Council (Nemzeti Főtanács) was established to
exercise the powers of the head of state
❖ President of the National High Council: Zsedényi Béla
THE FORMATION OF THE SECOND HUNGARIAN REPUBLIC (1946-1949)
❖ Act VIII of 1945 - suffrage
❖ Act XI of 1945 - provisional exercise of state powers
❖ Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party, the
Hungarian Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party of Hungary
and the National Peasant Party
❖ Margit Schlachta
❖ Act I of 1946: the republic as an institution is not contrary to 'the properly
perceived organic development', and, at the same time complies with the will
of the National Assembly representing the nation
THE FORMATION OF THE SECOND HUNGARIAN REPUBLIC (1946-1949)
❖ Preamble: the most important natural and unalienable rights of the citizens
❖ The right to personal freedom, the right to human life free from deprivation, the free
expression of thought and opinion, the free exercise of religion, the right of association
and assembly, right to property and personal security, the right to work and a decent
human livelihood, the right to education and the right to participate in the governance of
the state and local governments
❖ The president of the republic
❖ Election, four years
❖ The president of the republic shall represent the Hungarian state
❖ Depository of the executive branch through the relevant responsible ministry
❖ He could return any act once only
❖ Declaration of war and peace
❖ Limited power of pardon
THE FORMATION OF THE SECOND HUNGARIAN REPUBLIC (1946-1949)
❖ István Csekey, 1947: Not even during ten centuries has such a significant
constitutional act been drafted as Act I of 1946 on the form of government
of Hungary”18. Two years later, in the Autumn of 1948, during the
communist takeover, Minister of Justice, István Ries had the following to say:
Hungary will need a new constitutional act “because Act I of 1946 has been
superseded.
THE ADOPTION OF THE STALINIST CONSTITUTION (ACT XX OF 1949)
❖ Hungarian Workers' Party: need to create a people's democratic constitution
❖ Act XX of 1949 on the Constitution of the Hungarian People's Republic
❖ Based on the 1936 (Stalinist) Constitution of the Soviet Union
❖ State of 'workers and working peasants’
❖ The Hungarian People's Republic is a part of the socialist world system
❖ National Assembly as the supreme organ of state power, exercising all the rights deriving
from sovereignty
❖ Presidential Council of the People's Republic: power to issue decrees
❖ Council of Ministers: supreme body of state administration
❖ Declaration of the principle of judicial independence
❖ Rights and obligations of citizens and workers of the Hungarian People's Republic
❖ Act I of 1972 on the Comprehensive Amendment of the Constitution
THE COLLAPSE OF SOCIALIST “CONSTITUTIONALISM” AND THE FORMATION OF THE
THIRD HUNGARIAN REPUBLIC IN 1989/1990
❖ National Round Table
❖ 18. 9. 1989
❖ Peaceful political transition to a multi-party system, parliamentary democracy and the rule
of law, with a social market economy
❖ Act XXXI of 1989
❖ comprehensively amended the content of Act XX of 1949
❖ entered into force on 23. 10. 1989
Thank you for your attention!