La Faculté de droit, d'économie et de finance de l'Université de Luxembourg organise le 30 mai 2012, de 12h15 à 13h45, un séminaire de midi au cours duquel András Jakab présentera la nouvelle constitution hongroise entrée en vigueur en janvier 2012.

Programme

12.15 pm Introduction, by Prof. Dr. Luc Heuschling, Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law at the University of Luxembourg

12.30 pm Continuity with Deficiencies: The New Hungarian Basic Law

On 18 April 2011 The Hungarian Parliament approved the country’s new Constitution, named the ‘Basic Law of Hungary’. Its transitory provisions were approved in a different act of the Parliament, on 30 December 2011. Both acts entered into force on 1 January 2012. Most of the Basic Law’s content stems from the previous democratic liberal Constitution, but the rhetoric has changed into a conservative Christian historicising one. There are, however, also some substantive deficiencies in the new Basic Law and its transitory provisions, such as the curtailing of the competences of the Constitutional Court, the dismissal of the Data Protection Commissioner and of the President of the Supreme Court, the ability of the head of the judicial administration and of the Chief Prosecutor to choose a court for any court proceeding, and the exaggerated use of cardinal (organic) laws. These either breach general principles of constitutionalism, or European Union and international law obligations. Some of these deficiencies can be resolved by means of creative interpretation, if the Hungarian Constitutional Court accepts his task as the guardian of European Constitutional values.

1.00 pm Questions and discussion

András Jakab is a Schumpeter Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg. He holds a Ph.D. in Political and Legal Sciences from the University of Miskolc, Hungary (2007) and an LL.M in German Law from the University of Heidelberg (2005). He studied law in Salzburg and in Budapest (Pázmány), economics at the University of Western Hungary and Philosophy at the ELTE University of Budapest. Formerly he worked as an Associate Professor at the Department of Constitutional Law at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Budapest (2010-2011); as a García-Pelayo Fellow at the Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales (CEPC) in Madrid, Spain (2008-2010); as a Lecturer in Law at the University of Liverpool (2006-2008, subjects taught: English Legal Method, Jurisprudence); as a Lecturer in Law at the Nottingham Trent University (2004-2006, subjects taught: English Legal Method, European Union Law, and Public Law); as a Junior Research Fellow (wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter) at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany (2003-2004, Reference Topics: Comparative State Theory [vergleichende Staatslehre], South-Eastern Europe, Hungary, and Austria); as a Research and Teaching Assistant (egyetemi tanársegéd) for Administrative Law at the Calvinist University Károli Gáspár in Budapest, Hungary (2001-2003). He has published several books in Hungarian on legal theory (esp. theory of norms) and constitutional law. He is a member of the following learned societies: Societas Iuris Publici Europaei (SIPE) (European Association of Public Lawyers); European Society of International Law (ESIL); International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL, Individual Member); Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA; Member of the Public Body - köztestületi tag); The Society of Legal Scholars (U.K.).

Registrations and further information

Free seminar, maximum number of attendants : 40, registration by email: fdef-colloques@uni.lu (Last name, first name, institution)

Contact person: Nadja Risch, Phone: +352 46 66 44 6619