Ombudsman’s petition to the Constitutional Court on state property of documents previously owned by the Institution of Political History - AJBH-EN
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null Ombudsman’s petition to the Constitutional Court on state property of documents previously owned by the Institution of Political History
Ombudsman's petition to the Constitutional Court on state property of documents previously owned by the Institution of Political History
Ombudsman's petition to the Constitutional Court on state property of documents previously owned by the Institution of Political History
According to the commissioner for fundamental rights, the amendment of the National Archives Act adopted on 1st July 2012 violates the right to property and the freedom of scientific research since, as a result of it, all documents of political parties owned by the Institution of Political History and documents of trade unions preserved by the institution have been declared state property. Ombudsman Máté Szabó asked the Constitutional Court to examine the constitutionality of the regulation and to eliminate it because it provides general expropriation without compensation and makes the research of documents more difficult.
The complainant – director of a research institute carrying out activities of public utility – in his petition claimed that, as a result of the amendment of the National Archive Act adopted in July 2012, a new provision was inserted into the final provisions of the act. Based on this, from now on all documents of the Hungarian Labour Party and its legal predecessors, the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party and its civil and youth organizations as well as the National Council of Trade Unions and trade unions, have become state owned documents. These documents were produced between 1944 and 1989. The complainant argued that the documents, which were nationalized without any justification, in part belonged to the Institute of Political History and in part they were in the property of trade unions which deposited these documents in the institute.
In accordance with the provisions of the National Archive Act in force, the Archives of the Institute of Political History of Trade Unions, maintained by the Institute of Political History, is a private property open to the public, which means that documents in its collection are handled in accordance with the legal and professional rules set forth for public archives. The institution must provide information and data from its archives, prepare photocopies of documents and allow to carry out a research of these documents free of charge.
In the view of ombudsman Máté Szabó, these documents, considered to be objects of special material value, shall be protected as a private property. Although it is difficult to give their exact value, they are certainly more than mere data. These documents are enduring and original sources of history, essential for the research, the knowing and understanding of our past, and they may also contain information which can not be gathered from other sources.
As the commissioner for fundamental rights has pointed out in his petition, the legal way of acquisition of ownership by the state is expropriation, which shall only be made exceptionally, in the public interest and with full, unconditional and proper compensation. According to the ombudsman, in this case these conditions were not fulfilled, therefore the nationalization of these documents without any special argumentation and not followed by compensation is a violation of the right to property. In addition, Máté Szabó has stated that it is also a restriction of the freedom of scientific research since it is not clear what were the motives and legal aims of the nationalization of these documentations, which previously were in the property of a private archive open to the public. The commissioner emphasized that the real public interest is that documents containing information of general interest are made accessible and researchable.