After losing three consecutive elections (2006; 2008; 2011) to the Conservative Pary, the leader of the Liberal Party, Justin TRUDEAU promised that the 2015 general election would be the last to use the first-past-the post voting system in Canada. The Liberals won the 2015 elections with absolute majority, yet, Prime minsiter Trudeau abandoned his campaign promise to reform the voting system to have a more proprtional representation. By the end of that year an all-party Committee released a report recommending the Liberals design a proportional representation voting system and hold a national referendum to gauge support. It turned out, that the Liberals refused to knowledge a consensus, and months later, Trudeau directed the minister of democratic institutions to abandon electoral reform altogether. As a result, in 2019 and 2021 FPTP voting system was still used. These events have lead to the formation of a series of questions regarding the essence, the nature, and the complexity of the concept of (electoral) reform. The goal of the present paper is twofold: on the one hand, it attempts to unfold the "inner structure" of the concept, emphasysing the dynamic nature of it, on the other hand, it tries to come up with a detailed examination of the process of electoral reform (initiation, selection, decision, implementation), with a special emphasis on the role of the main actors (political elite, citizens, experts, judges, etc.), and of interest-oriented motivations, and value-oriented objectives of the reform. One of the conclusions of the paper is that main parties are mostly motivated by power-seeking self-interests, but their motivation is often justified by value-based arguments.
Keywords: Electoral reform, reform process, types of electoral reform, interest-oriented motivations, value-oriented objectives.
Levente Nagy, Associate professor, Head of Department, University of Debrecen, Political Science Department, nagy.levente@arts.unideb.hu.
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In the 2010s, the participation of the minorities in public life was expanded with a new institutional channel in Hungary, the system of the minority members of the parliament and the minority spokespersons, which - closely related to the contentious issues of the country's policy towards its domestic minorities and the demands of the minorities for parliamentary representation dating back to the change of regime - have been analysed so far in a number of works, mainly in law and political science, with particular reference to issues of their election and status, and not least, the specific activities of the German MP and the spokespersons. However, it is of crucial importance to explore more thoroughly how the minorities themselves approach this new political-legal framework, especially at the time of its election. The aim of the present study is, therefore, to introduce and analyse the main characteristics of the minority participation at the 2014 and 2018 parliamentary elections, based on electoral results and statistics, comparing them with the main features of the elections of minority self-governments. In this context, it unpacks the development of the numbers of the minority electoral rolls, the territorial configuration and local numbers of registered voters, and seeks also to explore the key explanatory factors behind the successful election of the German MP in 2018. At the same time, the article points out that Roma, by far the country's largest ethnic community, were registered to a small extent as compared to the minority elections and even less voted in the election of the Roma spokesperson. While in both elections examined, the overall turnout of the minorities was above the national average, which was, however, largely offset by the extremely high proportion of invalid votes.
Keywords: Minority participation, minority representation, minority spokespersons, parliamentary elections, minority self-governments
Balázs Dobos, senior research fellow, Centre for Social Sciences, Institute for Minority Studies, dobos.balazs@tk.hu.
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The regulatory impact assessment system of Hungary suffers from deficiencies since its inception. This often results in ill-thought out or inefficient legislation that needs to be amended quickly and needs to be amended often. This consequently raises issues with regards to legal certainty and ultimately to the rule of law. Despite this, the Constitutional Court of Hungary held in 1996, that skipping over the regulatory impact assessment step during the preparation of legislation does not lead to unconstitutionality as it only affects the social efficiency of the statute.
While a declaration of unconstitutionality based on the absence of regulatory impact assessment may not be warranted, the Constitutional Court's approach swings towards the other extreme and cements the view that regulatory impact assessments are inconsequential and unimportant and thus can be skipped without issues. This view forms the basis of how impact assessments are seen today.
In my paper I give a short overview of the impact assessment system's longstanding problems and the reform initiative of 2011. I then follow how this initiative slowly failed and how its goals, tools, and small achievements faded from memory. I then give a picture of how the regulatory impact assessment currently works, drawing on the data available to present trends and characteristics. Following this I look at a field of impact assessment that has long been neglected and on which not even the 2011 reforms could have any impact: the assessment of social impacts.
After evaluating how the regulatory impact assessment of Hungary works and what can be the causes of some of its biggest ailments, I propose a workable, and to an extent tried solution, that bases itself largely in the reform initiative of 2011. This way I not only propose a short-term solution, but a workable solution which does not sound foreign to the current executive. Coupled with this I also draw up a possible long-term proposal for the improvement of the regulatory impact assessment system, which while requires a considerable undertaking has the potential to widen the range of the system and improve the quality of the assessments.
Regulatory impact assessment in Hungary is a tool with yet untapped potential, capable of improving the quality of legislation. The solutions for utilizing this potential have been developed to a degree and with small adjustments and more dedication on the part of the executive could make a real difference when implemented.
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Visszaugrás
