BackIn accordance with the Fundamental Law of Hungary (accepted in April, 2011) the new Act on the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights will create a unified ombudsman system.
According to Article 30 of the Fundamental Law, the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights is a body comprising a single person who shall be nominated by the President of the Republic and elected by Parliament to carry out activities guaranteeing the protection of fundamental rights. Any person can initiate proceedings by the Commissioner. His or her remit extends to inquiring into and commissioning inquiries into irregularities related to fundamental rights. In order to provide legal remedy for such irregularities, the Commissioner may initiate general or specific measures, and must report to Parliament annually on his or her work.
The Hungarian ombudsman institution came to life during the democratisation process of the early 1990s and the office was formally established in 1995. The overall organizational structure with a range of ombudsman institutions is complex with a general civil rights ombudsman (Parliamentary Commissioner for Civil Rights, sometimes referred to as the human rights ombudsman/commissioner) and three independent and equally ranked specialised ombudsmen assigned to guard specific constitutional rights (including data protection and freedom of information, rights of national and ethnic minoritites, and environmental rights).
According to the provisions of the new constitution the name of the institution will change from the parliamentary commissioner to the commissioner for fundamental rights. The new provisions will strongly affect the organizational structure of the ombudsman system, since the Parliament would elect only one ombudsman and this person would be assigned to choose his/her own deputies (also elected by the Parliament). The office of the parliamentary commissioner for data protection and freedom of information will be reorganized as an independent data protection authority (in line with the 1995 Data Protection Directive). The new data protection authority will be separated from the ombudsman office.
The offices of the special ombudsmen (parliamentary commissioners for the rights of national/ethnic minorities and for the rights of the future generations) are to be integrated into the office of the general ombudsman. The till now independent special ombudsmen are going to serve as deputies of the commissioner for fundamental rights. The parliamentary commissioner for civil rights had been responsible for environmental issues until 2008, when the 1993 ombudsman act was changed and a new parliamentary commissioner for future generations – the so-called „green-ombudsman” was introduced. The new change means that the general ombudsman will win back all the competencies on environmental issues which he had lost in 2008.
The planned legislation will preserve the achievements which have occurred in the field of the Ombudsman’s protection of rights, but at the same time it will seek to provide solutions to the problems which have arisen in the course of judicial practice in recent decades. In the new legislation there will also be the opportunity to launch special proceedings related to organisations which are not public bodies (e.g. companies, banks, social organisations). Moreover, it will lead to a reinforced level of protection of rights, due to a more effective commissioner system and a broadening of the General Ombudsman’s mandate.
According to the opinion of Prof. Máté Szabó, the present parliamentary commissioner for human right, the planned legislation appropriately guarantees protection of fundamental rights which is more effective and focused than that which has existed up to now; the operation of the institution will become more effective and intelligible, and the tasks and areas of authority will receive clear regulation. “I trust that the fundamental values which I have represented will be safeguarded in the next phase of the creation of new legislation.”
Source: Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Civil Rights
