Hungary National Assembly
National Parliament building
Courtesy Gustav Forster
The Constitution designates the National Assembly as
the
supreme organ of state power. In reality the parliament
played a
limited role in the government. Until 1989, the 352-member
unicameral National Assembly met only three or four times
a year
in sessions that lasted no longer than four days each. In
addition to electing the membership of state and
government
bodies nominally subordinate to it, the National Assembly
also
enacted laws and approved the five-year economic plans.
However,
from 1980 through 1985 the National Assembly passed only
eighteen
bills, an insignificant number compared with those passed
by the
Presidential Council and the Council of Ministers. In the
late
1980s, party leaders openly acknowledged that these two
bodies
made all the important decisions and that the National
Assembly
was merely a rubber stamp.
Delegates to the National Assembly did play several
important
roles. They contributed to the plenary discussions of the
parliament, acted as members of the county groups, served
their
constituencies, and participated in the parliament's
standing
committees. Plenary sessions chiefly concerned local
problems and
were an attempt to use the parliament's publicity to
pressure
authorities on the distribution of funds. Delegates
elected from
each county formed county groups to promote the interests
of
their region. Because most counties had an urban-rural
mix,
formation of a common policy outlook was difficult.
However,
inasmuch as Hungary had more agricultural regions than
industrial
regions, agriculture enjoyed predominance. As servants of
their
constituencies, delegates reported on their activities in
the
National Assembly and attempted to resolve citizens'
complaints
against the bureaucracy.
The most important duties of the delegates concerned
their
work on the standing committees of the National Assembly.
The
National Assembly elected in 1985, in addition to legal,
administrative, and judicial committees, had standing
committees
for construction and transport, culture, industry, trade,
foreign
affairs, agriculture, social and health affairs,
infrastructural
development and environmental protection, and planning and
budgeting. During the 1980-85 convocation of the National
Assembly, 221 out of the 352 delegates served on the
standing
committees, which met about 50 times a year. The
committees
discussed draft laws submitted by the Council of
Ministers,
usually proposing only small changes in the text. The
committees
did, however, have the power to reject the drafts at this
stage.
In the 1980s, the committees also actively supervised the
implementation of laws. A parliamentary presidency, which
consisted of the chairman and two deputy chairmen aided by
a
small bureau, coordinated the work of the committees.
Data as of September 1989
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