Fidesz Official Calls For Changing In Hungary’s Laws On Assembly

  • 5 Jan 2015 8:00 AM
Fidesz Official Calls For Changing In Hungary’s Laws On Assembly
Hungary’s laws on public assembly should be changed, but not because of recent anti-government demonstrations, Fidesz lawmaker Gergely Gulyás said. Gulyás told daily Népszabadság that changes would ban different demonstrations held at the same location and limit their lengths.

“It is everyone’s basic right to demonstrate against the government, but putting up tents in front of Parliament for months is an abuse of the law,” he said.

András Schiffer, co-leader of opposition LMP, responded by calling on the government to initiate consultations by the five parliamentary parties on plans to amend the law on assembly. He said the government should refrain from “forcefully changing the legal framework that allows citizens to protest.”

Gulyás said such consultations would indeed be held and that Fidesz remains to be committed towards allowing the practice of such basic constitutional rights as the right to assembly.

The leftist opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) has said it finds the plans flagged by Gulyás unacceptable. “The Orbán regime is afraid of nothing more than its own people,” the party said. Limiting the right to assembly is the authoritarian tool of cowardly governments, it said.

Source www.hungarymatters.hu

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