Az Alkotmánybíróság döntései (2015. szeptember 24. és december 15. között)

Absztrakt

The Constitutional Court (CC) made 93 decisions between 24 September and 16 December 2015, most of them (81) in 5-member chambers. There were 8 decisions that found a body of law or a regular court’s decision unconstitutional. The decisions reached in plenary session were rarely unanimous: out of 12 cases only 1 was reached without any concurring or dissenting opinions.

One decision found a regulation of the Government unconstitutional, because it was ultra vires. According to the regulation in question any income from “national land” (state property) has to be appropriated for the development of the country or for the increasing of the national budget. According to the Constitution and the 2010 Act on Legislation only Parliament can regulate the appropriation of state property. Therefore the regulation is ultra vires and contradicts the constitution.

In another decision the question was whether the 2011 Act on Local Governments was specific enough to comply with the rule of law. According to the Constitution in some areas a local authority enjoys general competence (therefore can regulate with statutes), while in other areas it may not do anything with statutory authority. The latter applies to offences, which can be regulated locally thus supplementing the statutory law on offences. However, the act that specifies the authority of the local governments has to be specific, especially when the local government is authorized to regulate sanctions. Formerly [CC Decision 38 of 2012] the CC decided that the act in question was ambiguous when it authorized local governments to regulate offences against “peaceful public coexistence”. The Parliament amended the Act on Local Governments but the authorization rule still uses the ambiguous phrase “offences against peaceful public coexistence”. However, this time the CC found that the act complies with the Constitution and decided to – implicitly – overrule its Decision 38 of 2012. The reason was the 4th amendment of the Constitution which authorized local governments to forbid living in public areas (i.e. for homeless). The CC found this amendment applies to other regulatory authorization in connection with offences, so the act cannot be found unambiguous and the local governments can regulate within this broader scope.

Another decision dealt with some aspects of Act V of 2006 on Public Company Information, Company Registration and Winding Up Proceedings. According to the Act in the procedure of officially initiated deregistration the leader of the deregistered company is prohibited from becoming a director or majority member of any company within 5 years. According to the Act the decision of the registry court on deregistration and prohibition is published in the official gazette of the registry, but not delivered to the director concerned personally. The CC found this rule unconstitutional in cases when the company and its director were available for the registry court throughout the procedure. It is against fair trial not to inform the prohibited person about the decision. It also violates the right to appeal since the prohibited person can appeal within 15 days after the decision was published and the appellant cannot justify missing the deadline because the prohibition became known to him later than that.