Secret Intelligence Activity during the Temporary Period Following the Regime Change in Hungary

Abstract

In the temporary period following the collapse of the socialist regime, the Hungarian national security services and law enforcement agencies faced new tasks and new challenges, and above all, the frameworks of a new regulation were adopted as well. This regulation – adopted in 1990 – was intended to exist for a short period of time, and according to the intention of the government the final acts – which would regulate the whole field – should have been adopted in the same year. On the contrary, this provisional regulation was in effect until 1994 in the case of the police, and until 1995 in the case of national security services, when the new Act on Police and the Act on National Security Services came into force. So the national security services operated under the regulations of the provisional act during half a decade and developed their operations in accordance with the rule of law. In this essay the author examines the fundamental elements of this provisional act provided for the operation of the security services and finally comes to the conclusion that the moderate behaviour of the security services during this temporary period was due to the direction thereof, not to the quality of the legal system developed under the law.