HUN-1994-2-010
a)  Hungary / b)  Constitutional Court / c) / d)  24-06-1994 / e)  34/1994 / f) / g)  Magyar Közlöny (Official Gazette), 68/1994 / h) .
 
Keywords of the systematic thesaurus:
 
 
Fundamental Rights - General questions - Limits and restrictions.
Fundamental Rights - Civil and political rights - Freedom of expression.
Fundamental Rights - Civil and political rights - Right to information.
Fundamental Rights - Civil and political rights - Right to administrative transparency - Right of access to administrative documents.
Fundamental Rights - Economic, social and cultural rights - Scientific freedom.
 
Keywords of the alphabetical index:
 
Research, academic / Archive, document, access.
 
Summary:
 
The Constitutional Court ruled to be unconstitutional several provisions of legal regulations on the protection of archives dating from 1969, namely governmental decrees concerning research in public archives, as well as decrees regulating classified materials. The case concerned access to archives of documents which belonged to the Communist Party and were declared by law property of the Hungarian State. Under the 1969 legislation those documents could be consulted only with the permission of the Minister of Culture and Education.
 
The Court gave an interpretation of the relation existing between freedom of research and freedom of information. The Hungarian Constitution contains a provision concerning freedom of scientific research (Article 70/G of the Constitution) which states that the decision of scientific issues upon merit and the determination of the scientific value of research should be the exclusive rights of qualified scholars (Article 70/G.2 of the Constitution). Freedom of research is closely connected to freedom of expression and it obliges the State to respect the independence of academic life. The State must remain neutral in academic and scientific questions, but it must guarantee freedom of research and the distribution of its results.
 
Freedom of information can be constitutionally limited only when it is justified for the protection of another fundamental right or freedom.
 
Languages:
 
Hungarian.