LMP, Socialists submit constitutional amendment on ‘real deployment of army’

Budapest, June 7 (MTI) – The opposition Socialist and LMP parties have submitted a proposed amendment to the constitution so that “the armed forces can really be deployed within Hungary” in a state of terrorist threat, as against Tuesday’s constitutional amendment which primarily serves the government’s ambitions for power, the two group leaders told a joint press conference.

Socialist party and group leader József Tóbiás said the government had been given extensive powers as part of Tuesday’s counter-terrorism package. However, there is no need for introducing the legal category of “state of terrorist threat” by way of the constitutional amendment approved earlier on Tuesday.

The approved amendment authorises the government to take the internet and postal services under control, evacuate people from certain areas, ban public events and impose curfews. What the government really wanted was to have this special legal category approved and the Socialists did not support it because it only served the government’s ambitions for power, Tóbiás said.

Former LMP co-leader András Schiffer said the proposal submitted by the Socialists and LMP would enable the use of the armed forces for an even wider scope of purposes than what’s included in the constitutional amendment approved on Tuesday. He said the amendment is only “tangentially” about the deployment of the army.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters