Statement and recommendations to the OSCE SHDM on democratic law-making

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee submitted its statement, including recommendations, on issues related to law-making in Hungary to the OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on Democratic Law-Making: Ensuring Participation.

In our statement, we drew the attention of the OSCE to the systemic lack of transparency of and public participation in law-making in Hungary, which was exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, we called on the OSCE and OSCE Participating States to urge the Hungarian Government to:

• Strengthen legislative processes, “especially for laws affecting the enjoyment of human rights, by ensuring that mechanisms are in place to guarantee a transparent, inclusive and participatory process, including with opposition politicians, civil society, other relevant stakeholders and the general public, with adequate opportunity and time for meaningful review and proper debate of legislative proposals and amendments”, as recommended by the UN Human Rights Committee;
• Appropriately implement and adhere to existing domestic legislation providing for public participation and consultation in the legislative process;
• Re–organise and expand consultative bodies ensuring proportional and meaningful participation for civil society representatives;
• Make use of the expert knowledge of ODIHR to devise a strategy to enhance impartial, open, and inclusive public consultation and dialogue;
• Ease restrictions on the right of members of parliament to propose legislation and close loopholes on public scrutiny and debate in parliamentary procedures;
• Fully observe the requirements set out in the 1990 Copenhagen Document and the 1991 Moscow Document on the openness and inclusivity of the process of making laws.

The HHC’s full statement is available here.