Abstracts (PSz, 2019/1., 169-174. o.)

István Stumpf: Changes in the relationship between the The National Assembly and the Constitutional Court in Hungary from 2010 - Judicial Activism, Parliamentary Supremay, Constitutional Identity

The study analyzes the achievements of the "rule of law revolution", a concept which had a great career at the time of the Hungarian system change, furthermore analyses the role of the Constitutional Court in the different periods of the expansion of the rule of law. It presents the conceptual changes brought by the "Easter Constitution", the Fundamental Law in the system of checks and balances, in the laying of the foundations of constitutional identity and in the rehabilitation of the historical constitution. It summarizes the views that strongly criticized the Constitutional Court's fundamental right activism from the beginning of its operation and which views laid the groundwork for the advancement of political constitutionalism after the 2010 elections, a "public law revolution" based on parliamentary supremacy. Among the constitutional amendments, the study pays special attention to the seventh amendment of the Fundamental Law, which has established textual foundation for the constitutional protection of national sovereignty and identity. It draws attention to the conflicts arising from the collision of the EU law and national legal systems and to the ways in which they can be constitutionally resolved.

Keywords: Parlamentarian Supremacy, Judicial Activism, Constitutional Identity, Rule of Law, Constitutional Court.

Prof. Dr. István Stumpf professor, justice, SZE Deák Ferenc Faculty of Law and Political Science, ELTE Faculty of Law, Constitutional Court, Hungary, stumpf@mkab.hu

- 169/170 -

Cabrera Alvaro: Parliamentary regulatory impact assesments

For the first time in the Hungarian scientific literature, the study describes the definition and characterizes the different types of parliamentary regulatory impact assessment.

Parliamentary regulatory impact assessment is a specific type of impact assessment. Parliamentary Regulatory Impact Assessment differs from the others not primarily in its genre or other characteristics, such as the methodology used, but rather in the context in which it responds directly to the needs and logic of the legislature. It is an independent research carried out by the Parliament ‚s own body or department, an expert or an independent expert or research institute commissioned by Parliament. The subject may be any legislative topic (primarily a bill or a proposed amendment to a bill) as an ex-ante impact assessment, as well as an assessment of the effects of an already adopted and applied law as an ex-post impact assessment. The political-professional dimension of this is the Committee's post legislative scrutiny, based on scientific evidence of the impact of laws. Regulatory impact assessments can affect both the committee and the plenary level debates and can influence decision-making as well. Parliamentary impact assessment are important elements of high quality legislation. Describing the different types of parliamentary impact assessments, we can define the following variations:

1. Ex-ante parliamentary impact assessment;

1.1. Full ex-ante parliamentary impact assessment;

1.2. Additional ex-ante parliamentary impact assessment;

1.2.1. Additional ex ante parliamentary impact assessment for the original proposal;

1.2.2. Complementary ex ante impact assessment for the amendment to the original proposal;

2. Ex post Parliamentary Impact Assessment in connection with committee's post-Legislative scrutiny;

The study presents in detail the European practice and its main types, such as the ones used by the European Parliament or French, Spanish and Scandinavian examples. The main conclusion of the research is that parliamentary impact assessments have already been introduced into European practice and their role is expected to increase in the future.

Keywords: ex ante regulatory impact assesment, ex post regulatory impact assesment, parliamentary foresight activity, parliamentary post legislative scrutiny, parliamentary impact assesment

Cabrera Alvaro PhD, senior advisor and chief counsellor, Office of the Hungarian National Assembly, alvarocabreraphd@gmail.com

- 170/171 -

Marcell Melles: Terra incognita - in search of the conceptual boundaries of the election procedure

Elections are one of the most important tools guaranteeing the coexistence of human communities. Choosing the leaders of the states has necessarily become regulated by law, thus the electoral system was created. Nowadays the right to vote is a constitutionally protected right, the necessary legal preconditions for the practice thereof are determined by the state.

The electoral system naturally includes the electoral procedure, in other words, the totality of those acts, that create the necessary conditions for the practice of the right to vote. In that regard, the concept of the electoral procedure might seem clear, however it remains ambiguous, what specific steps or acts of electoral organs might fall into the concept of the electoral procedure.

The tools for clarifying the concept of electoral procedure could be the analysis of the laws related to the electoral procedure and the review of the relevant literature. Analysing the laws, ie. reviewing the Act on Electoral Procedure in effect, and the repealed, election-related acts cannot in themselves facilitate defining the timeline of the electoral procedure and the specification of acts as part of the electoral procedure. Although the review of the literature and the analysis of the laws might lead to the conclusion that the electoral procedure contains the steps taken in the period beginning with the call of the election and lasting until the handover of the letter of appointment, in this case, the status of the acts related to the elections, materializing beyond this timeline needs some scrutiny. Illustrating this question with a practical problem that has arisen in the practice, related to the election to the National Assembly: is the filling of vacant list mandates part of the electoral procedure?

The first step towards clearing up the conceptual framework of the electoral procedure is the recognition of the mere fact, that the concept of the electoral procedure is multi-layered. On the one hand, the electoral procedure might be an abstract concept, on the other hand, the electoral procedure might indeed pertain to a particular election, too. Any acts untied to a certain electoral procedure might be part of the abstract electoral procedure. This paper serves as a basis for finding the exact determination of these concepts in the future.