Kuria rejects referendum bids on Olympics, City Park – Update

Budapest, January 20 (MTI) – Hungary’s supreme court has rejected referendum questions on organising Olympic Games in Budapest and the upgrade of the Varosliget (City Park), overruling the Budapest Election Committee’s earlier approval.

The Budapest Election Committee approved both referendum questions on December 14 last year.

Concerning the rejection of the question of whether citizens agree that Budapest should not apply to host the Olympics in 2024, the Kuria said the capital had already submitted a declaration of intent to host the games to the International Olympic Committee. The deadline to submit the application is February 17, 2016, whereas the referendum would have taken place at a later date, the court noted.

The court said it rejected the question of whether construction regulations in City Park should not allow new museums to be built there because the project is set to go ahead in line with a law regulating the revamp and referendums cannot be held to overrule laws.

Commenting on the ruling, the opposition Egyutt party said that the Kuria made an unacceptable, political decision, which serves the interests of the ruling Fidesz party and denies citizens the opportunity to exercise their constitutional right of voting on important issues. The government has been working on disabling the referendum as a democratic institution for years, and the Kuria’s latest ruling is another step in that direction, Egyutt said.

The Dialogue for Hungary (PM) party called the ruling wrong. Co-leader Gergely Karacsony said his party is unsure whether the decision was a political one but it will resubmit both referendum initiatives. Regarding the rejection of the question concerning the City Park revamp, which he submitted, Karacsony said the court’s reasoning behind its decision was flawed, as the law on the revamp does not specify that new museums must be built in the area.

Katalin Erdelyi, who submitted the question on Budapest’s Olympic bid, said the Kuria made a political ruling by rejecting it and that its reasoning was flawed in this case, too. “If the question had been whether citizens agree that Budapest should withdraw its bid, then the court would have rejected it saying that the bid had not even been submitted yet,” she said, referring to the February 17 deadline

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