CONNECT

 

ORGANIZER

ZOLTÁN BÍRÓ

boycott.catl@gmail.com

I was unfairly fined:

The decision of the Hungarian Constitutional Court:*

NUMBER OF THE DECISION

22/2020. (VIII. 4.)

PETITION FILLED

2018.01.03

DATE OF DECISION

2020.07.14

SUBJECT OF THE CASE

Constitutional complaint aimed at establishing the lack of conformity with the Fundamental Law and annulling Section 19(3) of the Act CCXXXVIII of 2013 on Initiating a Referendum, the European Citizens' Initiative and the Referendum Procedure (fee imposed due to the failure to return the signature collecting sheets)

SUMMARY

The Constitutional Court found that the text of a provision of the Act on the Initiation of a Referendum, the European Citizens' Initiative and the Referendum Procedure was unconstitutional and therefore annulled it with effect from 30 June 2021. As the background of the case on which the constitutional complaint is based, the National Election Committee authenticated the petitioner's question proposed for referendum. Following the collection of signatures, the petitioner returned 165 fewer sheets than he had received from the election office, so in accordance with the statutory provision, he was obliged to pay a fine of HUF 165,000. According to the petitioner, the provision of the Fundamental Law allowing the right to exercise power directly (by way of a referendum) is violated by the fine automatically imposed in the case of the timely submission of signature-collecting sheets as provided for in the challenged statutory provision, because this sanction is unnecessary and disproportionate: it deters private individuals from initiating referendums while the submission of signature-collecting sheets has no role whatsoever in ensuring the cleanness and the legitimacy of the referendum initiative. The Constitutional Court found that the institution of a fine had disproportionately restricted the right to a referendum. As the amount of the fine threatening the organizer is to be estimated solely on the basis of the number of received signature-collecting sheets, and in the case of national referenda, it can be as much as the magnitude of HUF 10 million, and it threatens the organizer of the national referendum in a non-exculpatory manner even in the cases when the failure to return the signature-collecting sheets is due to the conduct of a contributing person or to an unavoidable external circumstance completely independent of the organizer. Although the threat of being fined seems low (as per signature-collecting sheet), but overall the amount of the fine is unrealistically high, therefore it is clearly capable of deterring voters from exercising their right to a referendum recognized by the Fundamental Law. Thus the Constitutional Court annulled the challenged statutory provision with pro futuro effect.

I didn't get the fine back!