Freedom of pressing the media in Hungary

New media law of Hungary has caused major controversy in Europe. Creator of the law, ruling party Fidesz, has prepared an amendment package presented to the EU; but these changes really safeguard the freedom of press in Hungary?

The word in vogue in Hungary nowadays is, “restoration”. This is because the government by the conservative right-wing party Fidesz is committed to “restoring the order” of Hungary, “putting everything where it ought to be”. The government circles are using this jargon frequently to justify certain policies. Strengthened by the landslide popular support, one of the first policy moves of Fidesz was to push forward the controversial media law, criticized heavily for curbing the freedom of press.



Orban speaking at the EU Parliament in Strasbourg.

Now, the law is to be amended after strong reactions from the European Union and international rights organizations. Power triangle of the EU, Germany, France and the United Kingdom has criticized heavily Hungary for the law. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch were among the international institutions coming forward with strong words against the new law.  

The EU and Hungary officials met for the first time to negotiate changes to the law on the 7th of February. After the meeting, the proposed amendment package was sent to the EU in three days. Now, the legislative changes are under consideration. Barely a month ago, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was defiant over the new law, dismissing international critiques as "interfering with domestic affairs of Hungary". Against for the domestic tensions created by the law, Orban has defended himself by stating that he was just trying to create "national unity".  

The European Parliament had witnessed a protest with Euro MPs bandaging their mouths when the Orban visited Strasbourg, as Hungary took over the EU Presidency. The EU officials repeated warned Hungary that the law hinders the image of the whole Europe as Budapest will be setting the agenda of the bloc until July as the term President.

Press freedom sacred

The EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has told the Orban that, the press freedom is "sacred". He added that there are certain “political perceptions and needs for Hungary to have the full backing of the member states and of the European institutions to make this presidency a success”. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel has affirmed though the spokesman Christoph Steegmans that as “the president of the EU, Hungary will have a particular responsibility for the image of the whole union in the world”.

Hungarian voters, highly disillusioned by the economic policy performance of the Socialist Party, in government since 2002, and mounting corruption charges concerning the state officials has leaned heavily on Fidesz’ side, rewarding it with 263 of the 386 seats of the Parliament. Fidesz has engaged in a hectic remodeling of Hungary’s laws and legal system after receiving almost 53% of the votes.

The media law was legislated on 20 December 2010 and came into effect on the first of the New Year. According to the law, all the media institutions in Hungary are placed under the scrutiny of a Supreme Council. Through this Council, the government is given the power to monitor and impose fines on media institutions, if they are though to violate “public morals”, damage “public interest”, or have an “unbalanced broadcasting policy”.

                          Hungarians organised mass demonstrations to protest the new media law.

All these concepts are rather ambiguous, empowering the Supreme Council to decide as it pleases regarding imposing fines or closing down the media institution in question. The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, has described the Council as an “establishment of politically unbalanced regulatory machinery with disproportionate powers and lack of full judicial supervision”. Moreover, the fines are rather heavy, especially in Hungary’s standards, as the country was almost constantly in economic crisis in the last five years. The financial "punishments" vary from 200 million forints ($950,000) national TV stations, 25 million forints ($119,000) for daily newspapers and Internet news sites.

In a similar vein, work of the media institutions might be suspended for over a month by the Council.

Civil momentum gathers for a new constitution

All around Turkey, civil initiatives are debating how the new constitution should be made. Previously, constitutional debates focused more on the content, now the interest builds up around how “ordinary citizens” might participate in drafting it. 

“Today, Turkey is condemned for a new, democratic constitution”; these do not seem very buoyant words for initiating the call to create a framework of consensus in the process of drafting a new constitution. Nevertheless, the members of the commission set up by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) opened the press conference reiterating the call for the new constitution made last Thursday in İstanbul with this very sentence. They were trying to emphasize the urgency and necessity of adopting a new constitution after the upcoming general elections in mid-June.     

The TESEV has assembled a committee of experts to work from January-April, drafting a report on essential principles of a constitution regarding issues like civil-military relations, decentralisation, ethnic and religious identity, freedom of conscience, local governance, and separation of powers. But, the TESEV’s goal is to open to debate, and one must consider how to ensure that a participatory constitution is created.

In fact, the general debates in civil society have changed from focusing on the proposed content of a new constitution, as they did a few years ago. Conversely, the central debate is increasingly geared towards guaranteeing that civil society organizations, civil activists, and even ordinary citizens are involved in the drafting process.

Great interest at grassroots

Civil society activist Ayhan Bilgen, who is touring Turkey to organise debates on the new constitution, points out that he is observing an enormous amount of grassroots interest, from individuals and organizations, in being addressed as parties to the constitution drafting process. Bilgen states that in İstanbul alone, almost 60 civil platforms have been assembled to be included in the drafting of the new constitution.

 Ergun Özbudun, one of the foremost experts on constitutional law in Turkey and a member of the TESEV’s commission, reasons that increased participation from civil society and a more representative parliament will yield more legitimacy as far as the new constitution is concerned.

“Threshold bars representation”

At another meeting this weekend, organized by the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) predominantly supported by Kurdish voters, concerns were voiced over the 10 percent threshold that bars the path of maximalisation of political representation. The conference, under the slogan, “We are drafting everybody’s constitution with everybody”, brought together a group of left-wing intellectuals, “fringe” politicians like the Greens of Turkey and powerful figures of the left, including the syndicates. The participants were convinced that the 10 percent election threshold should be lowered before the general elections in order to enhance the parliament’s ability to be truly representative. There is, however, almost no possibility that the threshold will be lowered before the upcoming elections. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan again stated last Tuesday that a lower threshold is “undesirable”, as it would lead to political instability through coalitions.

The BDP conference aimed to emphasize that a “people’s constitution” can only be created in collaboration with the people, and organised a campaign platform in order to advocate this idea. The same idea is supported by TESEV and other large or small platforms in organisational schemes mushrooming around Turkey.

This time around, they say, if Turkey finally gets rid of its coup d’etat constitution, it will be through the people’s will. For the time being, it’s still unknown whether Turkey can really embark upon a constitutional transformation process instead of just drafting a new constitution.