On the Local Regulation of Communal Coexistence

On the Local Regulation of Communal Coexistence

Back in November 2012 the Constitutional Court annulled a legal provision according to which local governments could define themselves locally punishable anti-social behaviour. As a result, the amendment of Act CLXXXIX of 2011 on Hungary's Local Governments (LGA), effective as of 1 January 2013, entitles local governments to set widely interpretable rules of communal coexistence instead of defining the criteria of anti-social behaviour. Commenting on a complaint, Commissioner for Fundamental Rights Máté Szabó emphasized the requirement of legal security.

By the middle of November 2012 more than 600 local governments had passed decrees on sanctioning anti-social behaviour. After the Constitutional Court had found anti-constitutional and annulled the relevant legal provision, the majority of local governments would have rescinded those decrees by the end of the year. According to Ombudsman Máté Szabó, however, in the absence of unambiguous guidelines from government authorities, there still remained a possibility of fundamental rights infringement in connection with cases already under way or where final decisions had already been made.

In late 2012 a petitioner from Debrecen complained that the officials of the municipal public space management authority had brought an action against him under the charge of prohibited anti-social behaviour. He was fined HUF 10,000 which was later reduced to HUF 5,000. The petitioner did not pay the fine but, due to the changes of the legal background, the authorities could not collect, either. The Ombudsman established that, although the petitioner had not suffered any pecuniary loss, there still remained a possibility of a fundamental rights impropriety.

As of 1 January 2013 local governments may regulate by decree the basic rules of communal coexistence and the legal consequences of their infringement. It means that there still exists a constitutionally worrisome legal situation for the new stipulations provide an even wider framework for issuing local decrees than the ones previously annulled by the Constitutional Court.

Therefore, the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights called on the notary of Debrecen to pay special attention to the requirement of legal security, deriving from the principle of the rule of law, in the process of drafting the decree on the basic rules of communal coexistence and the legal consequences of their infringement.

For the full text of the report please visit 201207704.rtf