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HUNGARY: BETWEEN HISTORY AND FUTURE

by Attila Antal

The history of real democracies has always involved tension and conflict.

Thus legitimacy and trust, which the theory of democratic-representative

government has tried to link through the electoral mechanism, are in fact

distinct. These two political attributes, which are supposedly fused in the

ballot box, are actually different in kind. Legitimacy is a juridical attribute, a

strictly procedural fact. It is a pure and incontestable product of voting. Trust

is far more complex. It is a sort of invisible institution

(Rosanvallon, 2008 3. p)

Just a few remarkable points about the current Hungarian politics. Recently Hungary and U.S.

have a really tense relationship with each other: the U.S. government pointed out several

times its concerns about the Hungarian corruption, law-making procedure and the

troublesome relationship between Hungary and Russia. The former Deputy Chief of Mission,

Andre Goodfriend expressed very critical opinion about the political of the Hungarian

government. FBI Director James Comey said the following words at Holocaust Memorial

Museum in Washington: "In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and

Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn't do something evil. They

convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do. That's what people

do. And that should truly frighten us."1 There was a huge diplomatic scandal about that. This

short introduction has flashed that something is wrong in the Hungarian politics and this has

begun in the past.

That is why I would like to speak about Hungary in way of the language of history and cleavage.

I am really convinced that the Hungarian politics can be characterized by history and

cleavages. According to Lipset and Rokkan (1967), cleavage separates the voters into

advocates and adversaries on political issues and define their voting. I will argue here that

1 Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/04/20/401017704/fbi-chiefs-comments-linking-poland-to-holocaust-draws-angry-response (all web pages have been downloaded 07.09.2015.)

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several cleavages determine the current Hungarian politics and they caused several

challenges.

I. HISTORY AND CLEAVAGES2

Hungary is small country with big history, but our history very controversial and the current

interpretation of national history is also very controversial. I would like to speak about the

crucial points of the Hungarian history.

1. Treaty of Trianon (1920)3

At first I have to note that the Hungarian people have a very strong feelings about the Kingdom

of Hungary, because we were a European Empire as the member of Austro-Hungarian

monarchy. Because of this the defeat of the World War I has defined our history. Furthermore

Hungary have lost its significant territories. Treaty of Trianon regulated the status of an

independent Hungarian state and defined its borders. According to Trianon, Hungary had lost

the 72% of its territory. It was not only a territory loss, but a population, cultural and economic

one.

2. The Holocaust (1944)4

During World War II, Hungary was a member of the Axis powers. By 1938, Hungarian politics

had increasingly become nationalistic because of Trianon and the Great Depression. Hungary

benefited territorially from its relationship with the Nazi Germany. March, 1944 German

troops occupied Hungary and soon mass deportations of Jews to German death camps in

occupied Poland began. Hungarian authorities deported more than 437 000 Jews. One in three

of all Jews killed at Auschwitz were Hungarian citizens. The Hungarian author, Holocaust

concentration camp survivor Imre Kertsz got Nobel Prize in Literature in 2002. His best-

known work, Fateless, describes the experience of 15-year-old boy in the concentration

camps.

2 Source: https://www.wikipedia.org/ 3 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Trianon 4 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary_in_World_War_II

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3. The Communist Regime: Hungarian People's Republic (1949-1989)5

Following the liberation of Hungary from Nazi Germany by the Red Army, Soviet forces

occupied Hungary. After the World War II the Soviet forces temporarily stayed in Hungary

it lasted 40 years. Hungary was governed by the Socialist Workers' Party, which was under the

influence of the Soviet Union. The Stalinist or totalitarian era lasted from 1949 to 1956. The

Hungarian Revolution of 1956 began on October 23 (actually now this is the Day of Republic

in Hungary) as a peaceful demonstration of students in Budapest. The students protested for

the implementation of several demands including an end to Soviet occupation. On November

4 1956 Nikita Khrushchev sent the Red Army into Hungary. During the Hungarian Revolution

an estimated 20 000 people were killed. The new dictator was a Soviet loyalist, called Jnos

Kdr, as head of the newly formed Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party. After the retributions

against the revolutionaries a new era started and framed by Kdr new policy under the motto

"He who is not against us is with us".

4. Regime Change in 1989-19906

By the 1980s, Hungary began to suffer from inflation, which particularly hurt the very poor

people. Hungary ran a massive foreign debt, and poverty became widespread. So the

consensus, which we called the pact of Kdr and meant a minimum living standard for the

people under the Soviet regime, has collapsed. The opposition groups forced the weakened

communist party to Hungarian Round Table Talk in the summer and autumn of 1989. After all

an agreement was reached involving six draft laws that covered an amendment of the

Constitution, establishment of the Constitutional Court, the functioning and management of

political parties, multiparty elections for National Assembly deputies, the penal code and the

law on penal procedures. These are the legal basis of the Hungarian regime change and

because of the Round Table Talks and this legal revolution we can speak about negotiated

regime change.

5 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_People%27s_Republic 6 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_communism_in_Hungary_(1989)

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5. Political Cleavages and History

These historical elements of the Hungarian history became political cleavage after 1990 and

the voter behaviour has been determined by these cleavages. In this sense for political Left

(which is the formal successor of the communist party) the tragedy of Trianon is not important

and they even do not understand it. On the other side Trianon is a fundamental base of the

political Rights identity. The opposite is the case with the Holocaust, which is the core element

of the Social-liberal politics in Hungary and sometimes its existence has been refused by the

Far Right. After 25 years of the regime change the Hungarian Left could not process its own

history include the Communist Regime. As long as the anti-communism is a fundamental

cohesive force on the Right. For the Social-liberals the legal revolution of 1989 is a crucial

point, because the amendment of the Constitution has become a new Constitution, on which

a new Democracy has been built. Recently the Hungarian Right simply denies that 1989 was a

regime change and according to the Orbns Government the real regime change has been

frayed out in 2010.

Cleavages Left (Social-Liberal) Right (Conservative)

1. Treaty of Trianon Not important Political identity

2. The Holocaust Political identity Refused

3. The Communist

Regime Could not process Anti-communism

4. Regime Change in

1989

New Constitution and

Democracy

There was not a real regime

change

II. CONSTITUTIONALISM, DEMOCRACY

According to these historical divisions a new kind of cleavage has been emerged after 1990,

around the relationship to the liberal democracy and liberal constitutionalism. This cleavage

has created two constitutional paradigm in Hungary: legal constitutionalism and political

constitutionalism. In my point of view the Hungarian politics, particularly the fundamental

changes of the past 5 years, can be characterized by legal and political constitutionalism.

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1. Legal Constitutionalism (1989-2010)

From 1989 the legal constitutionalism was the main paradigm of the Hungarian legal and

political thinking. The Constitution of 1989 and the jurisdiction of the Hungarian Constitutional

Court based on this concept. The idea of constitutional rights and the rule of law are in the

centre of to legal constitutionalism. According to this the constitutions secure the rights

central to a democratic society. This approach defines a constitution as a written document,

superior to ordinary legislation and entrenched against legislative change, justiciable and

constitutive of the legal and political system. argues Richard Bellamy.7 The judicial review

and of course the strong Constitutional Court are the fundaments of the democracy. According

to Bellamy, the legal constitutionalism based on two pillars: The first is that we can come to

a rational consensus on the substantive outcomes that a society committed to the democratic

ideals of equality of concern and respect should achieve. These outcomes are best expressed

in terms of human rights and should form the fundamental law of a democratic society. The

second is that the judicial process is more reliable than the democratic process at identifying

these outcomes.8 So the courts, especially the Constitution Court, can overrule the people's

will incorporated in parliament decision.

Under the concept of legal constitutionalism we have created very strong liberal democratic

institutions and the procedural legitimacy of the constitutional system was relatively strong,

but the social-liberal political elite did not pay attention to the trust in democracy. In Hungary

the people tend not to trust in national institutions.

7 Bellamy, 2007 1. p 8 Bellamy, 2007 3. p

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1. Figure Trust in Intuitions in Hungary (Source: European Commission, 2014)

2. Political Constitutionalism (2010-)

In 2010 in Hungary the political right gained supermajority in the Parliament and Viktor

Orbns government has totally redesigned the constitutional system and legal

constitutionalism has collapsed. The new Hungarian Constitution based on the political

constitutionalism. Bellamy argues that legal constitutionalism attempts to take certain

fundamental constitutional principles outside of politics, viewing them as preconditions for

the political system.9 This is depolitization and it creates apolitical politics, by the way this is

very similar to Carl Schmitts theory. According to this concept the democracy need to be

defended against judicial review. Bellamy summarized: The judicial constraint of democracy

weakens its constitutional attributes, putting inferior mechanisms in their place. That is not to

say that actually existing democracy is perfect and decisions made by judicial review

9 Bellamy, 2007 147. p

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necessarily imperfect, merely that the imperfections of the first cannot be perfected by the

second.10 In this point of view the political majority cannot be restricted by constitutional

institutions and even by the law.

What are the main elements of the current Hungarian political constitutionalism?

Restriction of the Constitutional Courts power, who was the main counterweight

institution of the Government.

Reinforce of the Governments power.

The Government has a stabile majority in the Parliament and at the same time the

members of the parliament have lost their autonomy and they have been controlled

by the Government.

The Government can overrule the decisions of the Constitutional Court, this raises the

dilemma of the unconstitutional constitution.

Instead of separations of powers the concentration of powers is the ruling principle.

III. CONCLUSIONS WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?

Robert Kagan argues that we assumed after the end of the Cold War that all kind of strategic

and ideological conflict will be end (this was concept of the end of the history). Kagan adds:

The world has not been transformed. In most places, the nation-state remains as strong as

ever, and so, too, the nationalist ambitions, the passions, and the competition among nations

that have shaped history.11 I am really convinced that he has right, but we should see this

returning of the history as a chance to fix it and do not deep our cleavages. As Thomas Pain

pointed it out: We have it in our power to begin the world over again.

10 Bellamy, 260. p 11 Kagan, 2008 3. p

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REFERENCES

Applebaum, Anne (2013): Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956. Anchor

Books

Bellamy, Richard (2007): Political Constitutionalism: A Republican Defence of the

Constitutionality of Democracy. Cambridge

Bozki Andrs (2002): The Roundtable Talks of 1989: The Genesis of Hungarian Democracy.

Central European University Press

Craig, Paul (2009): Political Constitutionalism and Judicial Review. In: Effective Judical Review:

A Cornerstone of Good Governance. C. Forsyth, M. Elliott, S. Jhaveri, A. ScullyHill, M.

Ramsden, eds., Oxford University Press, Forthcoming; Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper,

No. 58/2009.

Elster, Jon (1996): The Roundtable Talks and the Breakdown of Communism. University of

Chicago Press

European Commission (2014): Europeans in 2014. Special Eurobarometer 415. TNS opinion &

social, DG COMM Strategy, Corporate Communication Actions and Eurobarometer Unit12

Kagan, Robert (2008): The Return of History and the End of Dreams. Alfred A. Knopf, New York

Lipset, Seymour Martin Rokkan, Stein (1967): Party systems and voter alignments: cross-

national perspectives. Free Press

Rosanvallon, Pierre (2008): Counter-Democracy: Politics in an Age of Distrust. Cambridge,

Cambridge University Press

12 http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_415_en.pdf

I. History and Cleavages1. Treaty of Trianon (1920)2. The Holocaust (1944)3. The Communist Regime: Hungarian People's Republic (1949-1989)4. Regime Change in 1989-19905. Political Cleavages and History

II. Constitutionalism, Democracy1. Legal Constitutionalism (1989-2010)2. Political Constitutionalism (2010-)

III. Conclusions What About the Future?References