RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE 25 February 1999
HUNGARIAN ANTI-CRIME LEGISLATION RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL. The
Constitutional Court on 23 February ruled that several laws
in a package of amended legislation on fighting organized
crime are unconstitutional. The court said that the
parliament cannot amend laws by a simple majority if they
have been passed by a two-thirds majority. At the
government's request, President Arpad Goncz in January asked
the court to rule on the issue because the governing
coalition and the opposition had failed to agree on which of
those laws can be amended by a simple and which by a two-
thirds majority. On 24 February, Prime Minister Viktor Orban
said the court's ruling was "painful" because the country
will "lose time" in reinforcing public safety. MSZ
ETHNIC HUNGARIAN POLITICIANS UNDER INVESTIGATION IN ROMANIA.
The Prosecutor-General's Office has launched an investigation
into members of the "radical wing" of the Hungarian
Democratic Federation of Romania (UDMR) who participated in a
September 1998 meeting in Cernat (Covasna County) of the
Szeklers' Forum for the Renewal of the UDMR. Participants at
the forum adopted a resolution demanding Hungarian
citizenship for Romania's ethnic Hungarians, territorial
autonomy for the so-called Szeklers' lands, the setting up of
a Hungarian-language university in Cluj, and the full
restitution of Hungarian Churches' confiscated property.
Three UDMR parliamentary deputies were questioned in Brasov
on 24 February, Mediafax reported. UDMR chairman Bela Marko
has protested the investigation. MS
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