Presented by Máté Dániel Szabó (Director of Programs, HCLU) at the international conference "No country for civil society – What strategies can human rights organizations follow under increasingly authoritarian regimes?" on 30 May, 2014, Budapest
Last week’s dismal decisions of the Hungarian Constitutional Court (CC), the National Electoral Commission and the Data Protection Authority (DPA) have proved former concerns of human rights NGOs correct: institutions, which ought to be independent and have the duty to guard constitutionalism have failed. Read the full analysis here.
Now that the election date has been set, we will start to feel the menacing deficiencies of the new election procedures. HCLU has started its election monitoring work, during which it is going to document if and how these procedures, which are going to be applied for the first time in 2014, harm our constitutional rights. In the coming months we are going to examine if the data, which draws an objective picture of the different election phases, supports our suspicion that the new regulations violate participation rights in practice.
In response to our call, the National Election Office (NVI) has initiated an important amendment to the electoral procedure, thereby restricting opportunities for electoral fraud. The government amended the relevant decree. HCLU welcomes the modification, as it results in the increased transparency of the elections and an increased level of protection for the right to vote. However, we hold that further modifications are necessary to prevent fraud.