Hungarian parliament votes to hand over communist informant files to archives

Lawmakers on Thursday voted to authorise the government to hand over the magnetic tapes containing the files of secret service informants of Hungary’s communist era to the Historical Archives of Hungarian State Security Service.

The motion was passed with 126 votes in favour, 57 against and 2 abstentions.

Government office chief János Lázár said in March that the classification status of the tapes would be reviewed once they are in the archives.

Parliament also expanded the scope of the law to broaden the number of files under the authority of the historical archives. Accordingly, copies of files containing state security and defence data compiled by or stored in former state institutions or other archives will be transferred to the historical archives.

The historical archives will have absolute authority over the files specified in the law unless a specific authority is granted access to a certain file.

They will also have control over the files of Hungary’s Military National Security Service that have national security aspects.

Photo: Wikipedia Commons

Source: MTI