Constitution

Hungary 2011 Constitution (reviewed 2016)

Preamble

God bless the Hungarians

NATIONAL AVOWAL

WE, THE MEMBERS OF THE HUNGARIAN NATION, at the beginning of the new millennium, with a sense of responsibility for every Hungarian, hereby proclaim the following:

  • We are proud that our king Saint Stephen built the Hungarian State on solid ground and made our country a part of Christian Europe one thousand years ago.
    We are proud of our forebears who fought for the survival, freedom and independence of our country.

    We are proud of the outstanding intellectual achievements of the Hungarian people.

    We are proud that our people has over the centuries defended Europe in a series of struggles and enriched Europe’s common values with its talent and diligence.

    We recognise the role of Christianity in preserving nationhood. We value the various religious traditions of our country.

    We promise to preserve the intellectual and spiritual unity of our nation torn apart in the storms of the last century.

    We proclaim that the nationalities living with us form part of the Hungarian political community and are constituent parts of the State.

    We commit to promoting and safeguarding our heritage, our unique language, Hungarian culture, the languages and cultures of nationalities living in Hungary, along with all man-made and natural assets of the Carpathian Basin. We bear responsibility for our descendants; therefore we shall protect the living conditions of future generations by making prudent use of our material, intellectual and natural resources.

    We believe that our national culture is a rich contribution to the diversity of European unity.

    We respect the freedom and culture of other nations, and shall strive to cooperate with every nation of the world.

    We hold that human existence is based on human dignity.

    We hold that individual freedom can only be complete in cooperation with others.

    We hold that the family and the nation constitute the principal framework of our coexistence, and that our fundamental cohesive values are fidelity, faith and love.

    We hold that the strength of community and the honour of each man are based on labour, an achievement of the human mind.

    We hold that we have a general duty to help the vulnerable and the poor.

    We hold that the common goal of citizens and the State is to achieve the highest possible measure of well-being, safety, order, justice and liberty.

    We hold that democracy is only possible where the State serves its citizens and administers their affairs in an equitable manner, without prejudice or abuse.

    We honour the achievements of our historical constitution and we honour the Holy Crown, which embodies the constitutional continuity of Hungary’s statehood and the unity of the nation.

    We do not recognise the suspension of our historical constitution due to foreign occupations. We deny any statute of limitations for the inhuman crimes committed against the Hungarian nation and its citizens under the national socialist and the communist dictatorships.

    We do not recognise the communist constitution of 1949, since it was the basis for tyrannical rule; therefore we proclaim it to be invalid.

    We agree with the members of the first free National Assembly, which proclaimed as its first decision that our current liberty was born of our 1956 Revolution.

    We date the restoration of our country’s self-determination, lost on the nineteenth day of March 1944, from the second day of May 1990, when the first freely elected body of popular representation was formed. We shall consider this date to be the beginning of our country’s new democracy and constitutional order.

    We hold that after the decades of the twentieth century which led to a state of moral decay, we have an abiding need for spiritual and intellectual renewal.

    We trust in a jointly-shaped future and the commitment of younger generations. We believe that our children and grandchildren will make Hungary great again with their talent, persistence and moral strength.

    Our Fundamental Law shall be the basis of our legal order, it shall be an alliance among Hungarians of the past, present and future. It is a living framework which expresses the nation’s will and the form in which we want to live.

    We, the citizens of Hungary, are ready to found the order of our country upon the common endeavours of the nation.

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