nationalities in Hungary
The Constitution of the Republic of Hungary, amended in 1989 within a democratic framework and in force until the last day of 2011, declared for the first time in Hungarian history that national and ethnic minorities living in Hungary are part of popular sovereignty and are state-constituent factors. In addition to recognition it paved the way for these communities to be granted de facto equal rights and guaranteed additional minority rights to compensate for disadvantages.
In this context the Constitution enshrined the right of the thirteen nationalities recognised as indigenous to participate collectively in public life, to cultivate minority culture, to use their mother tongue, to receive education in their mother tongue, to use names in their own language and to establish local and national-level nationality self-governments. It also raised the level of protection of the legislation regulating the status of communities, their possibilities and their tasks, because it stipulated that the adoption of legal regulations on the rights of national and ethnic minorities (Act LXXVII of 1993 – Nektv.) requires two-thirds of the votes of the members of Parliament present.
The entry into force of the Fundamental Law on 1 January 2012 transposed the above provisions. Under Article XXIX, the nationalities living in Hungary are constituent elements of the state. All Hungarian citizens belonging to a nationality have the right to freely assume and preserve their identity, to use their mother tongue, to use their individual and community names in their own language, to cultivate their own culture and to receive education in their mother tongue, and to establish local and national-level self-governments.
The provisions of the Fundamental Law are expounded by the Act CLXXIX of 2011 on the Rights of Nationalities (Njt.) which also partly supplements the provisions of the Act on the Rights of National Minorities (Nektv.) in view of the social and political changes that have occurred in the meantime.
The anti-discrimination legislation is based on Article XV of the Fundamental Law (Act CXXV of 2003 on Equal Treatment and the Promotion of Equal Opportunities (Ebktv.)) and the legal protection of the ombudsman (Act CXI of 2011 on the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights (Ajbt.)), which ensures the monitoring of the enforcement of the law based on Article 30 of the Fundamental Law.