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Reconstruction of the Hungarian Parliament
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2014
Extract
Since the revolution of 1918 the Hungarian Chamber of Magnates, noted among upper chambers for its longevity, has been in a state of suspended animation. Unlike the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, which disappeared under the tidal wave of revolution at the outset of the Karolyist régime, it never was formally dissolved. Both houses of the Hungarian parliament, yielding to political realities, suspended their sessions and disbanded, many of the members of the upper chamber scurrying to regions under Allied occupation for protection against possible excesses of the revolution. Following the brief interlude of extra-constitutional Karolyist republicanism, under the legislative auspices of the Hungarian National Council, came the communist revolution which swept before it all remnants of the older constitutional structure. But not for long. On the collapse of the Hungarian Commune it became the onerous task of the Allied Governments to find, or to create, a constituent authority capable of assuming unreservedly the obligations of peace-making and domestic reconstruction. The First National Assembly, elected by decree of Stephen Friedrich, then the liaison between the Hungarian nationalists and the Great Powers in Paris, was the result. This single-chambered body, distinctly smaller than the old Chamber of Deputies because of the territorial reduction of Hungary, became, for the purposes of the Allied Governments, the sole repository of national power, and was acknowledged by them, as well as by the nation itself, to have constituent authority.
- Type
- Foreign Governments and Politics
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © American Political Science Association 1926
References
1 The text of this project is found in the Budapest Szozat, July 1, 1921.
2 For an excellent analysis of the bill, see Bulletin Ptriodique de la Presse Hongroise, No. 88, April 2, 1925.
3 Budapesti Hirlap (governmental), March 25, 1925.
4 Magyarság (Christian Nationalist), May 15, 1925.
5 Ibid., May 21, 1925.
6 This was denied by M. Puky, the government's rapporteur, who alleged that sixty-three per cent of the bourgeoisie and fifty per cent of the working classes would be enfranchised, in addition to an indeterminate number of women not previously entitled to vote.
7 Nepszava (Socialist), May 27, 1925.
8 Budapesti Hirlap, July 5, 1925.
9 Nepszava, July 5, 1925.
10 Thus a group of sixty members of the old upper house met in April, 1925, under the leadership of the old presiding officer, Count Wlassics, to examine Count Bethlen's project, and resolved that “Whereas our ancient constitution has always been in force, and whereas in consequence the fundamental principle of this constitution, to wit, that the legislative authority belongs in common to the king and parliament, has never been abolished, the second chamber of our parliament, the Chamber of Magnates, holds that it affirms not only its theoretical but its real existence, so that it may be convoked at any moment. In case the government should deem it necessary to constitute a second chamber, the law should specify that it does not involve the reform of the Chamber of Magnates en vacation—that legislative body being the emanation of integral Hungary—but the creation of a new upper chamber rendered necessary by present circumstances and complementing the Chamber of Deputies, but neither replacing nor continuing the Chamber of Magnates.” Budapesti Hirlap, May 22, 1925 (italics mine). Such are the constitutional eccentricities of Magyar irredentism!
11 Count Andrassy in Magyarság, May 22, 1925.
12 Bulletin Périodique de la Presse Hongroise, No. 88, April 2, 1925.
13 Szozat (anti-legitimist), March 13, 1925.
14 Pester Lloyd, March 7, 1925.
15 Szozat, March 7, 1925.
16 Magyarság (Christian Nationalist), March 17, 1925.
17 Bulletin Périodique de la Presse Hongroise, No. 88, April 2, 1925.