Reference period:1 May 1994-31 August 1994

Number of decisions:

a) Hungary / b) Constitutional Court / с) / d) / e) Decision No. 28/1994. (V.20.) AB hatarozat / f) / g) Magyar Kozlony (Official Gazette) No. 55/1994.

Constitutional justice - Constitutional proceedings -Decisions - Effects - Retrospective effect.

Fundamental rights - Collective rights - Right to environment.

Environment.

Some provisions of the amended Acts I and II of 1992 on agricultural cooperatives, which established the rules for distribution of land currently held by cooperatives among their members, were challenged before the Constitutional Court. The original law excluded "national park lands, areas protected by international agreement, and other protected natural territories" from distribution, unless such lands were already under certain forms of cultivation. The Parliament proposed amendments to the existing law in order to expand the number of cultivations under which distribution would be allowed, and sought to establish that protected areas could be privately owned. The Court declared that the amendments, since they would deprive of protection parts of the environment that had already been legislatively declared to be protected, violated the constitutional rights to a healthy environment and to the highest possible level of physical and spiritual health. In the opinion of the Court these rights have a special status; therefore the State is required to give legal and institutional guarantees to environmental protection. The level of such protection must be high according to objective standards - said the Court - and once a certain level of protection has been accorded by the State, it cannot be withdrawn.

Two judges wrote a dissenting opinion.

a) Hungary / b) Constitutional Court / c) / d) / e) Decision No. 34/1994. (VI.24.) AB hatarozat / f) / g) Magyar Kozlony (Official Gazette) No. 68/1994.

Fundamental rights - Civil and political hghts - Freedom of expression.

Fundamental rights - Civil and political rights - Right to information.

Fundamental rights - Civil and political rights - Right to private life.

Fundamental rights - Economic, social and cultural rights - Scientific freedom.

Freedom of academic research / Freedom of information.

The Constitutional Court ruled to be unconstitutional several provisions of legal regulations on the protection of archives dating from 1969, namely governmental decrees concerning research in public archives, as well as decrees regulating classified materials. The case concerned access to archives of documents which belonged to the Communist Party and were declared by law property of the Hungarian State. Under the 1969 legislation those documents could be consulted only with the permission of the Minister of Culture and Education.

The Court gave an interpretation of the relation existing between freedom of research and freedom of information. The Hungarian Constitution contains a provision concerning freedom of scientific research (Art. 70/G) which states that the decision of scientific issues upon merit and the determination of the scientific value of research should be the exclusive rights of qualified scholars (Art. 70/G (2)). Freedom of research is closely connected to freedom of expression and it obliges the State to respect the independence of academic life. The State must remain neutral in academic and scientific questions, but it must guarantee freedom of research and the distribution of its results. Freedom of information can be constitutionally limited only when it is justified for the protection of another fundamental right or freedom.

a) Hungary / b) Constitutional Court / с) / d) / e) Decision No. 29/1994. (V.20.) AB hatarozat / f) / g) Magyar Kozlony (Official Gazette) No. 55/1994.

Fundamental rights - Civil and political rights - Right to private life.

Personal identification number / Data protection.

The decision followed up a 1991 decision of the Constitutional Court that declared unconstitutional the unlimited, general and uniform use of personal identification number (PIN). The Court also ruled that the collection and processing of personal data in the absence of a definite purpose and for arbitrary future use are unconstitutional. In the present ruling the Court delivered its opinion with reference to the use of the PIN in specific cases. It declared that a decision in a minor offence cannot contain the PIN of the delinquent. It declared also unconstitutional the obligatory use of two different systems of personal identification for the same purpose. This part of the decision concerned the use of two different PINs in a special identity card entitling to the use of social security services.

Established case-law.

a) Hungary / b) Constitutional Court / c) / d) / e) Decision No. 35/1994. (VI.24.) AB hatarozat / f) / g) Magyar Kozlony (Official Gazette) No. 68/1994.

Constitutional justice - Constitutional proceedings -Types of claim - Type of review - Preliminary review.

Fundamental rights - Civil and political rights - Right to property.

Land property.

Several provisions of a new law on arable land have been challenged by the President of the Republic before the promulgation of that law. As a result of a preliminary control of constitutionality, the Constitutional Court upheld the challenged provisions. The Court has several times declared that the Constitution is neutral from the point of view of economic policy. A prohibition of economic intervention by the State cannot be derived from the Constitution. The Constitutional Court cannot adjudicate upon the economic policy of the legislative and executive.

In the specific case the Constitutional Court took into consideration that arable land is a limited good and cannot be substituted or increased. This justifies the imposition of reasonable limits on the acquisition of arable land. However, it emphasised that restrictions on the acquisition of arable land in order to promote the development of appropriate property structures must be provisional and reasonably motivated. The exclusion of foreign citizens from the acquisition of land property was found by the Court appropriate and reasonable. It upheld the constitutionality of a provision excluding Hungarian corporations from the acquisition of arable land, thus hoping to prevent any abuse of right.

Three judges wrote dissenting opinions - including the President of the Court who wrote a concurring opinion as well.

a) Hungary / b) Constitutional Court / с) / d) / e) Decision No. 36/1994. (VI. 24.) AB hatarozat / f) / g) Magyar Kozlony (Official Gazette) No. 68/1994.

Fundamental rights - Civil and political rights - Freedom of expression.

Defamation against public officials.

Hungarian criminal law protects public authorities and public officials against libel, defamation and other insults. The Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional Art. 232 of the Penal Code that prohibits defamation and libel against public officials. The Court found the provision unconstitutional because it unnecessarily limited freedom of expression.

The Court emphasised that this article punished libel and defamation against public officials in the same way as those committed against private persons. It also provided punishment for value judgments, which is an unnecessary and disproportionate limitation of the fundamental right to freedom of expression. Finally, the challenged provision differentiated neither between true and false statements, nor between a malicious and an unintentional commission of the offence.

In more general terms, the Court stated that the protection granted by criminal law to the honour of public authorities and officials is unconstitutional. In the case of libel and defamation against a politician or a public official a greater degree of insult may be tolerated than in the case of private persons.