BackThe new legislation entering into force in 2014 does not rule out the possibility of electoral abuse at the nationality self-government elections. Taking into account the census data in certain localities means that the nationality communities may not be able to form a local government – concluded Ombudsman Máté Szabó.
In recent years, nationality self-governments could be set up in numerous settlements even if the nationality they would allegedly represent was not present in the given settlement. For this reason, as of next year, the nationality law will allow to hold an the election only if at least 30 inhabitants of the given settlement identified themselves as belonging to that particular nationality during the census of 2011.
The Commissioner for Fundamental Rights drew the attention to the fact that the census data based on self-reporting do not accurately reflect the actual strength of nationalities. At the time of the census it was not yet known that these data would also be used for electoral purposes.
According to the census data, there are relatively big nationality communities living in several districts of the capital, as well as in many big cities and in some villages; meanwhile, even this fact is questioned by the nationality self-governments concerned. Therefore, the risk of forming “fake” nationality self-governments still remains. However, in several settlements, where the real nationality community would require the establishment of their own self-government, this will not be an option because, during the census, there was no sufficient number of declarations of ethnic identity.
The Commissioner for Fundamental Rights proposes to amend the legislation so that nationality self-government elections could be held in those municipalities where the strength of nationality communities or their proportion within the population justify their representation on the local level regardless the census data. This proposal is consistent with the opinion of the Venice Commission formulated in 2012, according to which it would be appropriate to use scientific research data besides the census data in order to determine the actual number of persons belonging to a nationality.
Source: Office of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights, Hungary
