Law pertaining to political parties and political pluralism — freedom of the foundation and functioning of political parties in post-communist Hungary

Abstract

This paper studies the law pertaining to political parties in Hungary, from the viewpoint of establishing and maintaining of political pluralism. In the period of 1989–1990, the transition from the one-party system to the democratic and pluralistic state of law could be followed up relative to the development of the law pertaining to the political parties, which is based on the rules that foreclose the contingent development of unconstitutional political system.The paper reviews the concept of the political party according to the constitutional law, the normative framework of functioning and the regulations of the internal organization of political parties. The provisions of primary importance concern: a) equality of political parties, b) forbidden purposes and instruments, c) rules of incompatibility, d) state subvention. Rules concerning the internal organization require the openness and the prevailing of democratic will-making also inside the political parties, so contribute to the maintaining the democratic competition of political parties.The author emphasizes the factors that determine multiparty-system, and argues that electoral thresholds and the effective method of state-financing of political parties contest the principle of equality and harm the fair-competition. Thresholds and subvention are both based on the effectiveness of political parties-though being capable to prevent the party system and the parliament from fragmentation, nonetheless, they prefer extensively, if not unconstitutionally, the political parties in the Parliament, so they can be seen as being designed to protect the current political elite.