Regulating the intelligence system and oversight in the Hungarian constitutional democracy

Abstract

"Hungary has come a long way. The National Assembly has effectively developed oversight of the military through budget, approval of the Basic Principles of National Defense and the Defense Bill, and deployment of the Armed Forces. The Constitutional Court has effectively addressed the problems caused by the October 1989 Constitution and 1 December 1989 Defense Reform; and its decisions have been respected. The military has evidenced significant reform; it has been restructured to accommodate NATO, but force modernization continues to be greatly restrained by scarce resources. But Hungary still has a number of tasks to achieve effective civilian oversight..."1. Every country that works to reform its defense and intelligence system must decide on the mechanisms and structure that are best suited for its needs. The end of the Cold War and the subsequent collapse of Communism in Europe brought enormous change to Hungary's society. Its defense and security service system have also gone through a tremendous transformation. Despite the relatively strong success in implementing a democratic system, market economy and civilian control of the military since 1989, the transformation of its intelligence agencies is not yet complete. It holds fast to the heritage of the old concept of the oversized, hyperbureaucratic intelligence system that still lacks the appropriate, Westerntype civil control and oversight. The system itself has been changing but not at the adequate speed and to some extent, it has kept the baggage from its past. The recent events of international terrorism bring with it an opportunity to examine the Hungarian Intelligence architecture, evaluating it for deficiencies and further develop what is working in the Hungarian Security Services. This analysis describes national intelligence organizations and examines intelligence oversight in the Hungarian constitutional democracy with recommendations for the possible guidelines for a new Hungarian intelligence system. The first section summarizes the current situation concerning democratic control and oversight and will lay down a thorough background that is important for an understanding of the ongoing situation in Hungary. Using the available sources of relevant legal and academic works on political science, the next part of this essay will be an objective overview of the current framework of the Hungarian intelligence system, its oversight, and highlights its remaining obstacles. In particular, it seeks to focus on the interaction between the intelligence establishment and the civil authorities and public. The next part suggests that the current system should be reviewed and adjusted according to the new security challenges and international environment. Finally, since civil-military relations and civilian oversight are a way of testing the genuineness and stability of the strategic re-orientation of Central Europe, it will attempt to prove that even with the new and democratic legal framework, the existing rules and structures are still deeply rooted in its history and need to be transformed and "euroformised" based on the requirements of the collective security and Western doctrines. © Physica-Verlag Heidelberg 2005.