Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Religion Provisions of the Constitution of Hungary (2012)


One of my current research projects involves analysis of the religion provisions of various constitutions enacted since the year 2000. From time to time on this blog, I'll post extracts of those provisions arranged according to categories such as "Religious Freedom" (guarantee of individual rights), "Established Religion" (joining religion and government), "Establishment Clause" (separating religion and government), "Ceremonial Deism" (symbolic references to religion that have little or no legal effect), "Equal Protection of Religion" (non-discrimination guarantees), "Preamble", "Religious Education", and "Religious Limitations."
------------------------------------------------

The Constitution of Hungary contains religious references to Christianity in the Preamble, but has a robust freedom of religion guarantee and an establishment clause.  The phrase "The State shall cooperate with the Churches for community goals" seems to leave room for a lot of intermingling, however.

Constitution of Hungary (2012)


Preamble

God bless the Hungarians

 We recognise the role of Christianity in preserving nationhood. We value the various religious traditions of our country.

Ceremonial Deism?

Article I[the letter].  The Holy Crown shall rest on top of the shield.

Closing provisions:  We, the Members of the Parliament elected on 25 April 2010, being aware of our responsibility before God and man and in exercise of our constitutional power, hereby adopt this to be the first unified Fundamental Law of Hungary.

Religious Freedom

Article VII
(1) Every person shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include the freedom to choose or change religion or any other persuasion, and the freedom for every person to proclaim, refrain from proclaiming, profess or teach his or her religion or any other persuasion by performing religious acts, ceremonies or in any other way, whether individually or jointly with others, in the public domain or in his or her private life.

Establishment Clause

Article VII(2)  The State and Churches shall be separate. Churches shall be autonomous. The State shall cooperate with the Churches for community goals.

Equal Protection of Religion

Article XV(2)  Hungary shall ensure fundamental rights to every person without any discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, gender, disability, language, religion, political or other views, national or social origin, financial, birth or other circumstances whatsoever. 

No comments:

Post a Comment