Consultation and central public administration in Hungary

Public Administration, 1993

Act XXXI of 1989 on the Modification of the Constitution Act ~I I of I989 on the Constitutional Court Act XXXIII of 1989 on the Operation and economic management of political parties Act xxwv of 1989 on the Election of Members of Parliament Act MV of 1989 on the Election of the President of the Republic of Hungary Act XVII of 1990 on the Representation in Parliament of national and ethnic minorities Act XXXIII of 1990 on the Temporary regulation of the legal status of state secretaries Act LIV of 1990 on the Election of the representatives of local self-governments and Act LV of 1990 on the Legal status of the Members of Parliament Act LXV of 1990 on Local self-governments Act LXVII of 1990 on Certain questions related to performing the task of mayors Act xc of 1990 on the Legal status, office and certain tasks of the Commissioners of Act c of 1990 on Local taxes Act XVI of 1990 on Concession Act XVIJ of 1991 on the Lifting of the competence of the government for controlling the lawfulness of the operation of some social organizations Act xx of 1991 on the Tasks and range of competence of local governments and their organs, Commissioners of Republic and some organs under central control Act MIV of 1991 on the Local governments of the capital city and its districts Act XXVI of 1991 on the Extension of the supervision by court on decisions taken by Act MIII of 1992 on the Legal status of civil servants Act XXXIII of 1992 on the Legal status of public employees Government decree 7711992 (IV. 30) on Certain tasks of the Commissioners of the Government decree 102611992 (v. 12) on the Modernization of public administration living in the Republic of Hungary mayors Republic public administration Republic structure based on 'democratic centralism'. The council system was characterized by the existence of a centrally controlled political Clite, which, however, lacked real powers to take decisions. Thus, councils largely represented the illusion of democracy. Under the socialist system, the Communist Party controlled society through the council staff of counties and municipalities. As a result, the replacement of the council-based public administrative system with a sphere of independent local self-government was a key concern in administrative reform. It was partly for this reason that, after the ousting of the Communists, the reform of local government preceded attempts at modemizing other elements in public administration. At the same time, there can be no doubt that local government reform responded to a genuine demand in society. Against this background, it is not surprising that Hungary was the first among the Central and Eastern European countries to pass a new law on local government.

Institutiones Administrationis

The regulation of the relationship between central and local government in Hungary has undergone significant transformation in the last decade. The government has robust tools to control local activities, just these tools are rarely applied by the supervising authorities. The main transformation of this relationship can be observed in the field of public services. The formerly municipality-based public service system was transformed into a centrally organised and provided model, thus the role of local governments in Hungary has decreased. The centralisation process was strengthened by reforms during the COVID-19 pandemic.

2014

Studia Iuridica Lublinensia, 2020

Nowe węgierskie instytucje zapobiegające milczeniu administracji publicznej-działają na korzyść czy przeciwko interesom stron postępowania? SUMMARY The Programme for the Reduction of Bureaucracy launched by the Hungarian government in 2015 has several directions, such as rethinking of the system of administrative organs, reshaping of civil service, simplification of administrative procedures, and fight against administrative silence, as well. New codes on the administrative procedure and on the judicial review of the administrative decisions were passed in 2016 and 2017, and the sectoral regulation has been transformed, as well. The most important change of the sectoral procedural rules was the replacement of procedures for permissions to a simple duty of notification. The authors investigate, if these institutions really help to reduce the burdens citizens and companies have in connection with bureaucracy: whether they are efficient tools against administrative silence and really are improving the situation of the parties vis-à-vis the administration and fostering good administration. They also take a closer look on the newly established action for failure to Act I of 2017 on the Code of Administrative Court Procedure (in force since 2018) intended as an additional tool, as well as its other new institutions addressing the problem of silence of administration.

International Public Administration Review, 2014

The purpose of this paper is to introduce those scientific methods and new paradigms that are to overcome the one-sided jurisprudential methods of analysis of public administration. On the one hand, as it has been obvious for a long time, a sort of inter- or multidisciplinary method is needed for a strong scientific and material framework which allows further conclusions. And on the other hand, beyond multi- and interdisciplinarity, it is unavoidable to reestablish the philosophic synthesis between the legal norms regulating public administration and the facts of the real operation. Probably this direction will/may be the basis and the realiser of the change of paradigm (also) in Hungarian sciences of public administration. In general it may be stated that due to the crises social sciences more and more shall start examining the real meaning of things, the broader examination frameworks of the analysed phenomena, instead of descriptive questions analysing the ways of operation. In t...

2023

In the 21st century, the two administrative instruments that have the greatest impact on the legal situation of members of society, administrative enforcement and administrative legislation, have been and are being confronted with a number of social challenges (global economic crisis, refugee crisis, epidemics and pandemics). The challenges of the 21st century require public intervention to provide a rapid, accurate and effective response to the problems that arise, while ensuring legality and the protection of the rights of the citizens. The first responses to social problems are provided by sectoral regulations, which may conflict with general rules of administrative procedure. The study analyses administrative decisions of general scope in the light of special sectoral regulation and review the points of conflict with general rules of administrative procedure. The study concludes with a proposal.

The paper is based on a research project launched in 2012. The objective was to analyse, from a political science perspective, the main factors and circumstances of the process of territorial governance reform attempts before 2010, and the turning point after starting a strongly centralised model. The focus of the research was not so much on the objectives of the reforms, but rather on the context and the actors of the reform processes. It was presumed that the defeat of decentralisation could be explained by the weakness of the actors to preserve the formerly strong positions of local governments. The research hypothesised that, following the transition years, the gradually fading enthusiasm of parliamentary and party-political elites contributed to the failures of correctional reforms and to the limitation of institutional guarantees for safeguarding the interests of local governments.

Central administration Chapter · January 2014 with 1 Reads In book: Hungarian Public Administration and Administrative Law, Publisher: Schenk Verlag, Editors: András Patyi, Ádám Rixer, Gyula Koi, pp.287-303. 1st János Fazekas 2.33 · Eötvös Loránd University Abstract Before the change of regime (1989-1990) Hungarian public administration was a unified state administration system under very strong political guidance exercised by the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (MSZMP) which was the only political party during the communist era. Local governments were not separated from the state and political administration. The head of the state administrative system was the Government which was subordinate to the MSZMP. After the change of regime the democratization process of the Hungarian public administration began. The local governments became independent from the Government. On the other hand, the change of regime had very serious affects on the central government itself. These affects are as follows: a) The Government became the leader of the state administrative system in both political and administrative sense. The Government is the principal body of state administration, having organizational power over it and adopting decrees. On the other hand, the Government’s democratic legitimation comes from the Parliament, because the Parliament delegates power to the Government which shall be responsible to the Parliament. Therefore the Parliament has its general impact on the functioning of the Governments (e.g. acts, the state budget). b) The governmental system faced some new tasks which could not be observed in the communist era, e.g. the Hungarian Competition Authority was established in 1990: this kind of body would have been certainly unthinkable before the Regime Change because of the lack of a market economy. c) The other important new phenomenon is the rise of autonomous and quasi-autonomous agencies in central administration, e.g. the aforementioned Hungarian Competition Authority or the National Radio and Television Board in 1996. These organs need some degree of independence from the Government and the other levels of central administrations (e.g. ministers) because of the political sensibility of their work or to guarantee the functioning of some constitutional rights. d) The impacts of EU-accession in 2004 and later the EU-membership were not so well-marked since EU law, according to the Treaties, provides no direction on what kind of organizational structure Member States operate. However, this statement proves to be less and less true. The convergence between Member States brought organizational solutions closer together, even in the sense of organizational specifications. E.g. some EU regulations oblige Member States to establish and operate independent regulatory authorities in certain sectors. The ministerial structure has been affected by changing economic regulation, especially with regards to the organisational models evolved to solve and handle tasks that arise from the fact of being a member of the EU (e.g. harmonisation of legal framework, the transposition of the services directive, development policies, planning, and use of EU subsidies). Agency-type organizations gain more significance within Member States. As mentioned above, there are fields in which the EU obliges Member States to operate independent regulatory bodies (e.g. media). These agencies also operate trans-national networks for e.g. information-gathering purposes.

Politics in Central Europe, 2023

More than thirty years after Hungary's transition to democracy and the change of territorial governance model, the time is now right to assess the outcome. This paper is primarily an assessment, concluding that the deadlock of the Hungarian local government system can be explained not only by the centralisation efforts of the governing and opposition political elites or the continuous decline of the budgetary position, but also by the indifference of local society. The fact is that the Hungarian local governments were not protected from being squeezed out of a significant part of public services, from a narrowing of their room to manoeuvre and from their authority position being weakened, by the general constitutional provisions introduced in 1990. An important proposition of this paper is that (local) society, although still more trusting of local governments than the central government according to various surveys, has not been able to become an 'ally' of local governments. The question rightly posed in the title of the paper is, whose interest is the local government system, who finds the values of self-governance important? The paper seeks (based mainly on academic literature and on its own and secondary analyses) the reasons/changes that have led to the stalemate of Hungarian local governments despite their initially strong mandate.

Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska, 2023

2013

In 2010 Hungary was in the fortunate position as the traditions of the Hungarian public law have precedents for the new aims. However, to achieve satisfactory reforms, the administration shall serve the citizens as the legendary inter-war administrative professionals believed, like István Ereky, Zoltán Magyary and their school. We cannot ignore the inter-war period’s experiences and findings without saying a word. Facing the conclusions and results of that time is not only a possibility, but the duty of the administration, both theoretically and practically. The paper reflects on the early reforms of 2010.

2012

2014

The paper focuses on the Hungarian administrative reforms in the East-Central European context in order to show that the Hungarian developments have been the worst-case scenario of Europeanization. The bumpy road character with its ups and downs appeared in the first twenty years but this feature of administrative reforms has been reinforced by the latest developments in the second Orban government (2010-2014) when the former patronage system in public administration has been turned into a complete “merger”, i.e. the whole public administration has been over-politicized. This invasion of politics into all levels of public administration with the appointments of loyal party soldiers to the top administrative positions has led to a drastic decline in governance capacity and effectiveness. Thus, the recent story of the “colonization of state” by pol-

2012

This paper focuses on the meaning-understood both as the explicit conceptualization and the (sometimes implicit) set of connotations-of the terms 'governance' and 'good governance' as it appears in an important and influential segment of presenttime Hungarian language political science discourse. Our central ambition is to identify and highlight a tension, or rather discrepancy, between this discourse on the one hand, and much of the conceptualizations and frames characterizing the international academic and practitioner discourse, on the other. In particular, we wish to make, and argue for, three claims. These claims are, somewhat simplified, as follows: Claim (1): In an-both academically and practically important-strand of Hungarian political science the notions of 'governance' and 'good governance' 1 are, unlike (much of) the international academic discourse, conceptualized in a surprisingly homogeneous, narrow and consensual (as opposed to heterogeneous and controversial/debated) way. Claim (2): This specific conceptualization has the following characteristics: