Mr. Miklós Ligeti:

Thank you Chairman. My briefing paper describes how the Hungarian Government, relying on its overwhelming majority in parliament, which it successively gained during the national elections in 2010 and 2014 has deconstructed the edifice of checks and balances and built a de factoupper house of government via appointees throughout the system of Hungary.
I am a lawyer by education and a representative of a civil society organisation. I am here to address the political situation and what I believe is going far beyond the structure of powers in Hungary. It is about the core values of any society in the European Union, a basic value is that civil society organisations are autonomous institutions of a society not part of the government structure, not direct subordinates to any government or state organ. These organisations, one of which I represent, are expected by law and by all due requirements to give real time and reliable accounts of their financial situation, their resources and the way they obtain and use these resources. However, they have the privilege to be audited, examined and investigated in a lawful manner where they have the possibility to seek legal remedy to appeal against any step or measure taken by a government institution against them to a court where a judge who is in independent, impartial and unbiased has the sole right to address such complaints and resolve the issues. That is not the case in Hungary, unfortunately. Civil society is being harassed and this is a sad and disappointing conclusion that I have drawn. It is not the fact that we are being audited that makes us speak up against the government steps, it is the way it is being done. A government institution, which in the English translation is the Government Control Office is conducting a financial audit of our incomes and the way we manage our income and expenses. This audit is a discretionary measure directed by the government. There is no possibility to turn to a court or a judge to seek legal remedy against the government's excessive demands for documentary information of personal data which we are compelled to comply with by force of law and by extreme sanctions such as the suspension of tax identification number, which is a first step on a downward slope that ends in the erasure of state registries and the ceasing of the existence of these organisations.
In addition the Hungarian Government's financial audit stands on shaky grounds and on questionable jurisdiction, but there is an ongoing criminal investigation instructed by the prosecution and done by the Hungarian criminal police into the NGOs in the country funded by Norwegian Government's civil society funding. Some 43 police officers - the number of police required to combat a middle sized drug gang in the country - appeared in the premises of civil society organisations which is a clear intention to comply with government needs and government authorities, and a search and seizure happened. Documents were taken. We do not know where these investigations are going to lead. The only source of information upon which the police criminal investigation stands is an individual complaint made by a politician from the Government party against a non-specified person for alleged embezzlement and misuse of public funds. This is the general framework of the situation of civil society in Hungary. I wonder if I should go further by describing not the political but the institutional setting of the country as regards the rule of law and the legal institutions.
I wish to draw the attention of the distinguished members of the committee that Transparency International Hungary, a member of the worldwide Transparency movement to oppose corruption globally, is really a non-partisan organisation with a mission to assess and audit the national government's anti-corruption performance in an unbiased manner. Transparency International, TI Hungary did so. During previous administrations, when the government comprised different political parties, socialist and liberal parties, TI Hungary voiced its deepest concerns and criticism because of the then government's lamentable and questionable contribution to the institutionalisation of corruption in the country. We have to admit to a high level of institutional corruption and only a marginal respect for the rights of the political opposition. This has always prevented democracy from flourishing in our country. The country does not really have a robust record of democracy. After the fall of communism there was a prospect and a consensus that the power of the new government of whatever political nature needs to be controlled by independent institutions and that the main branches of power - the legislature, the executive and the judiciary - needed to be separated.
The current Government first took office in 2010 and, as I already pointed out, it is relying on a two thirds majority in parliament. In the Hungarian context, with a two thirds majority in parliament, the constitution can be changed and there are no legal barriers to constitutionally prevent the government from going upfront and going on its own path. The current government broke this consensus. As I mentioned it is building an upper house, which is not a democratic upper house but comprises appointees and nominees who are getting public positions with often questionable professional careers but unquestionable political bias. With due respect to this esteemed committee's guidelines, that we were not to touch on individual issues or pending legal cases, I will not do so. There are concrete and not just abstract risks and perils coming from the new setting of powers in Hungary. Once, the constitutional court, one of the most esteemed constitutional bodies among the newly independent countries of the post-soviet area was the most robust check to control the parliament and government's steps in the legislative terrain.

While the constitutional court did a very good job, its role as a robust control factor has been eliminated through the partial rewriting of its jurisdiction and competence and the packing of the court with justices who previously sat in parliament as members of the governing parties and who had no intention of meeting the formal requirement of becoming a constitutional court assistant justice.

The government has used its parliamentary majority to introduce laws that virtually confiscate proprietary rights. In every society persons have the right to presume, without reference to their social, ethnic, religious or other origins, that their honestly achieved and fairly owned properties or business enterprises are protected by the authorities and law against arbitrary interference or intervention. That is not the case in Hungary. As the regrettable example of the decision to nationalise whole segments of the free markets in tobacco retail and the savings co-operative sectors show, the constitutional court was either unwilling or incapable of providing a virtual or real defence for the former owners of tobacco kiosk licences and the former stakeholders of savings co-operatives. These sectors of the economy were nationalised by law and the relevant licences redistributed, through an utterly questionable procedure, to entrepreneurs and individuals who were not market incumbents but new players. In many reported cases the individuals in question had extremely close ties to the government.

This is an example of the cronyism emerging in Hungary. I do not propose to go any further in citing individual cases. I simply wanted to demonstrate that packing courts and interfering with or influencing the functions and capacity of independent control institutions was not just an abstract threat to democracy. On the contrary, it is a truth that corruption kills democracy because in concrete individual cases no effective legal remedies are available.

We, that is, civil society organisations, face being blacklisted and labelled as promoters of foreign interests in different jurisdictions in exchange for funding from foreign sources. We are being audited in a procedure that was designed to audit the functions of government offices. Under this discretionary procedure, we do not have any possibility of seeking a review by a judge or going before the constitutional court. The only domestic instance in which we had a feeble chance of seeking a remedy was the ombudsman. When we addressed the matter to him, instead of taking legal steps and referring the case to the constitutional court - he is the last instance available for so doing - he simply wrote a letter to a member of the government, the Minister in the office of the Prime Minister who is the No. 2 in the Government, stating he had serious doubts about the legitimacy of the audits.

I do not know if I should broaden the discussion.