The Third Wave – The New Constitution
The Eötvös Károly Policy Institute, the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union and the Hungarian Helsinki Committee have examined the draft Constitution of Hungary submitted to the Parliament on 14 March 2011. According to the NGOs the draft Constitution undermines democratic political competition and makes political change more difficult by transforming institutional structures, weakens the system of checks and balances and alters the framework of the political community by extending the right to vote. The draft Constitution decreases the level of protection of fundamental rights and significantly limits the enforceability of these rights through curbing the Constitutional Court’s powers. Since there is no information available on the planned content of the acts of Parliament requiring a two-third majority to be adopted, it may be stated that the adoption of the new Constitution will be only the beginning of the constitution-making process, not the end of it.