The position of Fidesz - Hungarian Civic Union on the opening of former state security files

Dátum: 2005-03-17 14:14:00, eredeti URL: http://archiv.fidesz.hu/index.php?Cikk=35404
KCMDB-be feltöltve: 2024-05-04 21:29:24.951263, Feltöltő: fidesz_hu_scraper_v2

During the decades of the one-party communist dictatorship in Hungary (1947/9-1989), institutional disregard for and the repression of human and civil rights had become general practice. Those planning and riping the benefits of the repressive mechanism are to be found at the leadership level of the defunct ruling party, among members of the former political elite. In the oppressive system of the state-party apparatus, the distribution of roles and responsibilities has not yet been fully explored, it is still an issue covered by thick fog for the public. The political past of some active political actors may be traced back to the leading institutions of the "soft dictatorship" established after 1956.

The proposition of Fidesz - Hungarian Civic Union is to ensure that:

1. The records created during the dictatorship be fully accessible for all in the relevant archives.

2. Access to and research criteria for the records transferred to the archives be equal with the reasearch criteria in force at the Historical Archives of the State Secret Services.

3. The review of files still kept in the ministries, reaching a volume of a thousand meters in length, be accomplished as soon as possible, and they can only remain classified in reasonable circumstances, under strict public control.

4. Present public actors' political activities pursued during the communist dictatorship be made public entirely.

5. For the sake of public transparency, persons having pursued state security activities against Hungarian citizens before 1990, not upon coercion but on their free will, be excluded from excercising public authority. (The proposition, upholding the current regulation, would only concern future mandates.)

6. Spoiling and abusing former state security files be sanctioned.

7. The notion of public actors be specified in a way that it include the persons the existing legislation (the so-called "Agents Act") considers liable for screening.

Fidesz - Hungarian Civic Union, having urged the amendment of the "Agents Act" for years, suggests that the possibility of exploring and researching into the oppressive mechanism of the communist dictatorship, its political oversight, as well as the real activity of the one-time actors be secured. The goal is to uncover the past of any group in society, including the leadership of the defunct state-party apparatus, to the public eye. It seems therefore necessary to disclose a wider spectrum of existing files to the public. Among the secret files of the state-party apparatus, those drafted at Department III of the Interior Ministry represent only a narrow segment of all documents. Therefore, unlimited access to the files created at the various state and party institutions should also be ensured in a unified regulatory framework. Maintaining the classified status certain documents and their transfer to the Archives should be made under the strictest public control, under the supervision of the Parliament's National Security Committee.

Under the arrangements proposed by Fidesz, not only the functioning of the one-time state security agencies, but also the political direction mechanisms of the communist dictatorship would be made public, as access to and research of the documents would fall under the same regulations.

Budapest, 17 March 2005