The case of the Opposition Round Table and the Data Protection Ombudsman. Some issues of regime change in Hungary

A rendszerváltás egyes kérdései Magyarországon

Abstract

An important contribution to the understanding of the 1989 regime change is the case of the publicity of the Opposition Round Table Negotiations (ORTN). On the one hand, the historical significance of the ORTN undoubtedly unquestionable. On the other hand, ORTN is one of the great historical events of the Hungarian regime change and a prominent topos of 1989. The paper analyses the Data Protection Ombudsman’s recommendation in the Opposition Roundtable case and puts it in historical perspective. It concludes that the historical justification of the Opposition Roundtable’s recommendation is indisputable, and it is also beyond argument that the recommendation has shaped the country’s public law system in a positive direction (to this extent it is also activist recommendation). At the same time, the paper points out that the Ombudsman’s argument cannot be justified on a legal positivist-formalist basis.