Top court approves Socialists’ referendum question on scrapping Sunday shopping restrictions – UPDATE

Budapest, April 6 (MTI) – The Kúria, Hungary’s supreme court, on Wednesday approved a referendum question submitted by the Socialist Party on scrapping the law on Sunday shopping restrictions.

The decision means that a referendum could be called on the matter, asking voters whether they agree that parliament should scrap the shop-closure law altogether.

With its ruling, the Kúria overturned an earlier decision by the National Election Committee (NVB), which refused to consider the question submitted in February by lawmaker István Nyakó and approved a rival referendum initiative in support of the Sunday shopping ban.

The Kúria said the other question, submitted by Anikó Erdősi, “could not be considered as the first question to have been submitted”. The court said Nyakó’s initiative, on the other hand, was submitted in accordance with Hungary’s referendum law.

The ruling brings an end to a drawn-out debate over an incident that occurred at the end of February when Nyako and Erdősi first submitted their referendum questions to the National Election Office (NVI). Nyakó was held up by a group of “thugs” just long enough for Erdosi to submit her question. The timing of the submissions is significant because Hungary’s current referendum law states that while a question is being examined by a court, it is not possible to submit another question on the same subject.

In early March, the Kuria declared that Nyakó’s rights were infringed when he was prevented in submitting his referendum question.

The NVB and the NVI both filed criminal complaints over the incident.

On Friday, Justice Minister László Trócsányi submitted to parliament a proposal to amend Hungary’s referendum law in a way that would allow multiple initiatives on the same subject to be presented to the NVI.

The Socialist Party welcomed the Kúria’s decision. Party deputy leader Zoltán Lukács, who had been camping out in front of the NVI since early morning, told MTI that the party wants to combine its signature drives for referendum questions on the sale of state-owned farmland and on putting a 2 million forint cap on public officials’ salaries. He said these referendums would be about giving the people an opportunity to express their discontent with the government’s policies, making them “anti-government referendums”.