Short description of the legal system in Hungary
Hungary is an independent, democratic constitutional state. According to the amended Constitution Hungary is a parliamentary republic. Hungary has a civil law system. The sources of Hungarian law are the Acts of Parliament, governmental and ministerial decrees, which are valid only if published in the Official Gazette, and decrees of local governments. The legal system of the Republic of Hungary accepts the universally recognized rules and regulations of international law, and shall harmonize the internal laws and statutes of the country with the obligations assumed under international law. Hungary has become a member of the European Union in 2004.
The basic and supreme law of the Republic of Hungary is the Constitution. The Constitution in its present form is a compilation and regrouping of the modifications of the earlier constitution (Article XX of 1949) into a coherent structure. Important stages in the process of drafting the Constitution were Act XXXI of 1989 and Act XL of 1990. The Hungarian Constitution regulates two classical constitutional areas: state administration (national government, local government, and organizations for the protection of rights) and the listing of the basic rights of citizens.
The chapters of the Constitution cover the following: general provisions, the definition and roles of the major political-legal institutions of the state (the Parliament; the President of the Republic; the Constitutional Court; the parliamentary Ombudsman; the State Auditing Office; the National Bank of Hungary; the Government; local governments; the court system; the Public Prosecutor’s Office), the basic rights and obligations of citizens; electoral principles; the nation’s capital; the national symbols of the Republic of Hungary; and the decrees for implementation.
International Law and the Hungarian Law
Under Article 7(1) of the Hungarian Constitution, the Hungarian Republic recognizes the generally accepted norms of international law and ensures the harmony of international obligations with the domestic law.
In 1989 the political and economic transition in Hungary was accompanied by a peaceful ‘civil rights revolution’. As a result, a Parliamentary Act significantly extended the catalogue of rights in the Hungarian Constitution.
The Hungarian Constitutional Court was established 1989. Its field of authority provided the possibility for citizens to challenge the constitutionality of any legal norms and judicial decisions on the ground of unconstitutionality. In comparison with other legal systems, the Hungarian judicial review includes both pre-norm control and retrospective “abstract norm control” is also accompanied by some special institutions, such as “constitutional complaint” and the recognition of “unconstitutional situation by the failure to adopt a law”. The active role of the Constitutional Court contributed in large to shaping the new legal regime that emerged after 1989.
Bioethics and Medical Law
Since the Hungarian legal system is based on the civil law model, the primary sources of medical law are statutes and decrees. The major legislative step was the adoption of the Health Care Act of 1997, officially the Parliamentary Act No CLIV of 1997 on Health Care.
The Health Care Act of 1997 encompasses practically all aspects of health care. It includes principles of health care; patients’ rights and patients’ duties; public health, health promotion; family-, child-, youth- and women care; sport medicine; nuclear safety; occupational health; basic rules on epidemics and infectious diseases; vaccinations; the system of health care services; preventive care; primary care; out-patient and in-patient services; ambulances; hospices; rehabilitation; medical devices; psychotherapy; medication; non-conventional treatments; professional rules for medical practice; quality assurance; the rights and duties of health care staff; state responsibility for health care; research on human subjects; medically assisted human reproduction; psychiatric care and services; organ and tissue transplantation; cadavers; post-mortem inspections; blood supply; oxiology; medical treatment in the situation of a disaster; health experts; natural curative sources (e.g. the use of thermal water); and international provisions (health services for non-citizens, adoption of international agreements). Some of the topics are largely unchanged and have been simply re-adopted from the previous Health Care Act of 1972. However, many new provisions have been introduced, such as patients' rights, assisted reproduction, patients' rights representative, etc. Since 1997 numerous decrees have been added to further specify some chapters of the Health Care Act. The Parliamentary Act itself has been also amended several times (Act No LXXI of 1999, Act No XXXIV of 2001).