In her writing, Bernadette Somody examines the following questions: How effective can non-judicial institutions of rights-protection be? What is the extra value these institutions can add to the enforcement of basic rights by the Constitutional Court and the ordinary courts? What is the added value to the protection of fundamental rights that justifies their existence?
András Jóri, the current Hungarian data protection commissioner analyzes and evaluates the competences of his institution. He argues that a full-fledged data protection organ should be an information commissioner, whose competences would include also privacy protection, strengthened by an institutional structure and budget independent from the other human rights commissioners.
With the reprinting of an interview published in the issue of 2005/2, Fundamentum remembers the recently deceased Imre Furmann, founder and former head of the Legal Defense Bureau for National and Ethnic Minorities and deputy chair of the Equal Treatment Authority.
The Forum column of this issue primarily deals with the rights-protecting activity of selected parliamentary commissioners and the Equal Treatment Authority. In her essay, Eszter Jovánovics assesses the work of Máté Szabó, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Civil Rights. She focuses on the ombudsman's activity in relation to freedom of assembly, giving birth at home, and drug policy. While appreciating Szabó's proactivity in these issues, she also draws attention to the fact that the ombudsman's public appearances do not always meet the requirements of his position. Balázs Majtényi examines the practice of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations. In his highly critical writing, Majtényi points to the deficiencies of the ombudsman through the analysis of the commissioner's project entitled The pioneers of sustainable development. Finally, Mónika Ambrus discusses whether the Hungarian Equal Treatment Authority meets the standards set by the Paris Principles for national human rights institutions.
In this column Pál Könyves Tóth reviews the amendments of the 1992 Act on the protection of personal data and freedom of information. In his view, the amendments point to a more enhanced protection of these two constitutional rights.
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We present summaries of the latest decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, the German Federal Constitutional Court, and of the Hungarian Constitutional Court.
In the first section of the column we publish articles about the activity of the Hungarian ombudsperson for national and ethnic minorities, the Equal Treatment Authority, and the National Radio and Televison Commission. The second section deals with the National Human Rights Institutions. The first article, written by Máté Szabó summarises four recent reports of the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency, including the one on National Human Rights Institutions in the EU Member States. We also publish the summary of this very report. Veronika Haász's article discusses the activity of the International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.
Here we present a review of the recently published Commentary to the Hungarian Constitution. ■
Visszaugrás
