Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 27th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview Panel: The Rule of Law & Public Administration Author(s) Nora Balogh-Bekesi Pazmany Peter Catholic University Budapest Hungary Title The Realisation of the Principle of a Fair Procedure in Hungary File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Nora Balogh-Bekesi Abstract The paper aims to present the realisation of one of the most important procedural principle – the principle of a fair procedure – regulated in the Fundamental Law of Hungary, which entered into force on 1st January 2012. The principle of fair procedure can be considered the basis of all procedural rights. In its nature it resembles more the principle of human dignity. In its kind it is an absolute right, but the rights derived from it – such as the right to legal remedy – are rights which can be restricted in case of the conditions specified by the Fundamental Law of Hungary. The principle of fair procedure is regulated as the right to good administration in paragraph 1 of Article XXIV. of the Fundamental Law of Hungary as follows: “Everyone shall have the right to have his or her affairs handled impartially, fairly and within a reasonable time by the authorities. Authorities shall be obliged to give reasons for their decisions, as provided for by an Act.” The other one is regarding court proceedings, where the principle of fair procedure is named as the right to a fair trial and regulated in paragraph 1 of XXVIII. of the Fundamental Law of Hungary as follows: “Everyone shall have the right to have any charge against him or her, or his or her rights and obligations in any litigation, adjudicated within a reasonable time in a fair and public trial by an independent and impartial court established by an Act.” We should note that the quoted paragraphs of the Fundamental Law of Hungary mention the requirement of a decision within a reasonable time and several other requirements as the part of the principle of fair procedure. The two aspects of the principle of fair procedure can be understood in connection with each other too; for example, the duty to justify decisions can be found in administrative procedures as well as in judicial proceedings. Therefore the paper firstly present the different aspects of the principle of a fair procedure and examines them in detail. These parts are the right to legal remedy, the requirement of a decision within a reasonable time, the duty to justify decisions, the obligation for cooperation between the administrative bodies and the clients, etc. In the second part of the paper, we analyse the latest and most relevant decisions of the Constitutional Court of Hungary and the Curia of Hungary about the practice of the direct enforcement of the principle of a fair procedure regarding administrative justice and administrative decisions. This analysis is even more actual, because from 1st January 2018 the new Code of Administrative Procedures called Act CL. of 2016 on General Public Administration Procedures entered into force. It includes all general regulations regarding administrative procedures.
