Justice minister submits proposed amendment to referendum law

Budapest, April 1 (MTI) – Justice Minister László Trócsányi on Friday submitted to parliament a proposal to amend Hungary’s referendum law.

The amendment would alter the rules for submitting referendum initiatives to allow multiple initiatives on the same subject to be presented to the national election office (NVI).

All petitioners can therefore start collecting the 200,000 signatures needed for a referendum to be called, irrespective of any overlaps in their questions. Once the national election committee (NVB) has certified the 200,000 signatures supporting a referendum initiative, rival signature collection campaigns have to be wound up and further questions on a given subject are no longer allowed to be submitted.

Under the amendment, the government or the president could not initiate referendums on subjects for which signatures are already being collected.

The new rules were originally proposed by the NVB and the NVI.

Hungary’s current referendum rules state that while a question is being examined by a court, it is not possible to submit another question on the same subject.

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