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Hungary Amendments of 1972
To keep pace with the changes that had taken place in
Hungary
since Kadar became first secretary of the HSWP in 1956,
the
regime changed every chapter of the Constitution in 1972.
According to Hungarian political scientist Istvan Kovacs,
the
1972 amendments "brought into harmony the wording of the
Constitution and the socialist transformation of the
country
between 1949 and 1972." Thus, the Constitution describes
the
achievements of the Kadar regime. It also provides a
constitutional basis for the regime's efforts to gain the
allegiance of all Hungarians by replacing the term
workers, the only group that the 1949 Constitution
entitled to full civil rights, with the term
citizens. The
changes in 1972 signaled a break with Hungary's Stalinist
past
and the beginning of a new, more benevolent phase in
regimesociety relations.
The Constitution, as amended in 1972, plays several
important
roles in Hungarian political life. Most important, the
Constitution provides justifications for the emergence and
development of the regime itself, as well as for the
political
forces that shaped its character. The Preamble refers to
the
Marxist-Leninist regime as the product of more than 1,000
years
of Hungarian history, thereby linking it with Hungarian
tradition. It also draws on the heritage of the Hungarian
Soviet
Republic of 1919, thus attempting to create a socialist
state
tradition in Hungary and link itself to that tradition
(see Political and Economic Life, 1905-19
, ch. 1).
In justifying the regime, the Constitution attempts to
establish the legitimacy of the attempts to political
system. The
Constitution defines the Hungarian People's Republic as a
socialist state in which all power belongs to the working
people.
It labels the Patriotic People's Front (PPF) as a movement
uniting all social groups for the resolution of political,
economic, and cultural problems. Chapter I, Article 15,
establishes the orientation of Hungary's foreign policy by
stating that the country forms part of the world socialist
system
and seeks to develop its friendship with other socialist
states.
Finally, Chapter IX of the Constitution defines visual
symbols
for the Hungarian People's Republic by describing the coat
of
arms and the flag of the state and by locating the
country's
capital in Budapest.
In establishing the country's political system, the
Constitution fixes the HSWP as the leading force in
society.
Although the Constitution does not formally proscribe
other
political parties, neither does it provide for their
existence.
On November 10, 1988, however, the Council of Ministers
took the
first in a series of steps required to legalize the
existence of
other parties when it approved draft laws on the rights of
assembly and association. The National Assembly approved
these
new laws on January 11, 1989. According to the new laws,
county
courts were to register these associations and could not
refuse
to register them if they met the law's requirements. Thus,
private individuals, legal entities, and unofficial groups
could
set up political parties if their programs observed the
law. A
separate statute was to deal with matters such as
registration,
supervision, and dissolution of the parties. A new
constitution,
which was to be ready for ratification in 1990, would
determine
the role and status of political parties other than the
HSWP in
society. Taking advantage of this change in the political
atmosphere, other political parties, which had been
disbanded in
the late 1940s, began to reemerge in the late 1980s. For
example,
the Independent Smallholders' Party announced it would
resume its
activities. The Social Democratic Party and the National
Peasant
Party also began to reorganize
(see Coalition Government and Communist Takeover
, ch. 1).
Having provided several kinds of justifications for the
regime's existence, the Constitution proceeds to establish
the
institutions of government. The Constitution delineates
the
powers of the National Assembly, the Presidential Council,
the
Council of Ministers, and the local councils. The
Constitution
establishes a judicial system made up of the Supreme Court
and a
series of lower courts. The Constitution requires the
National
Assembly to elect a prosecutor general, who in turn
appoints
prosecutors at the local levels.
Like constitutions in the West, the Hungarian
Constitution
describes civic and political rights. These rights include
the
guarantees of equality before the law and the personal
freedom
and inviolability of the citizenry; liberty of conscience
and
freedom of worship; freedom of speech, press, and
assembly; right
of association; and privacy of correspondence and the
home. In
line with the Marxist-Leninist ideology of the regime, the
Constitution also guarantees certain social and economic
rights,
including the right to leisure time; the right to
financial
support for old age, disease, and disability; and the
right to
education.
The Constitution, however, limits citizens' exercise of
their
political rights. According to Chapter VII, Article 64,
the
Constitution guarantees the rights of speech, press, and
assembly
"in a manner conforming to the interests of socialism and
the
people." This clause allows the government to ban any
activities
it considers detrimental to its interests. Equally
important,
Chapter VII, Article 69, states that the "fundamental
duty" of
the citizenry is to "protect the property of the people,
to
consolidate social ownership, to increase the economic
strength
of the Hungarian People's Republic . . . to consolidate
the order
of society." Although in 1988 the United States Department
of
State found that Hungarians enjoyed relatively more
liberties
than their counterparts in other countries of Eastern
Europe,
duties to the state continued to take precedence over
rights
contained in the Constitution. The regime did not treat as
inalienable the rights held by the people.
Furthermore, socioeconomic rights contained in the
Constitution have acted not only as an economic safety net
but
also as a source of oppression for the people. For
example, the
right to work not only guaranteed employment but also
allowed the
regime to enforce compulsory employment for all adult
males and
all single females because the regime could best exercise
power
over the populace while they were at work. The right to
leisure
time allowed the regime to control the forms of
entertainment
that citizens could enjoy. And the right to primary and
secondary
education has meant little more than the obligation to
listen to
regime-sponsored efforts at political indoctrination.
Data as of September 1989
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