After Palkovics’ resignation, AB determined that the MTA was unconstitutionally dismantled «Merce

The Constitutional Court decision In accordance with the law, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was dismantled in an unconstitutional manner, when Eötvös Loránd’s research network was withdrawn from it.

According to the decision, legal certainty and the protection of the right to property were primarily damaged, but it was not confirmed that the freedom of science would be harmed by the seizure of the search network.

It is symbolic that the decision that ended the three-year process came to light shortly after the resignation of former Minister of Innovation and Technology Laszlo Palković, who once led the transformation. Officially confirmed by the government.

By the way, he is the former president of ITM and TIM He will work for the Ministry of National Defense In the future, after becoming President of N7 Nemzeti Védelmi Ipari Innovációs Holding Zrt. , which manages, among other things, military interests in the Czech Republic.

According to the declaration of AB “Among other things, the Constitutional Court has held that it is constitutional to allocate the assets of a transportation agency restricted for a particular purpose to another body if, to the extent necessary, the scope of the assets is narrowly defined, and there is the possibility of judicial review against a decision. A new body already using property does not acquire rights Not only property, but also bear its burden.

According to E, this is against the law MTA was obliged to To continue making his real estate assets available to the now separate Search Network. When the search network was spun off, the properties were owned by the MTA, but remained in use by ELKH.

By the way, concerns about this have already been addressed Drafted by the MTA in 2019, turnaround timeAs a result of the action taken following the proposal to monitor the standards of more than a quarter of the members of Parliament and the constitutional complaint to the Transport and Transport Authority, it turns out that they were right.

According to AB, it is “The National Assembly has caused an unconstitutionality manifested in its omission by not properly regulating present and future property rights relations when organizing research institutes formerly run and administered by the Ministry of Transport as a public function in a new administrative structure,” And he said that “The state must put in place systems that provide the necessary conditions and guarantees for the performance of public duties.”

However, the Constitutional Court rejected the complaint on another very important point. at that time from several directions We walked aroundWith the search network removed, the government, primarily the then Laszlo Palković Ministry of Innovation and Technology, had a say in how and what the search network should do.

This is a serious infringement of the freedom of science: previously, the research network of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences operated with standard state support and grant funding, but could decide on research topics independently of the government. Citing innovation and foreign models – including the German one by mistake – the government largely overruled it.

According to AB, on the contrary

“In itself, the fact that a state intends to carry out a public mission through another body is not yet unconstitutional.”

In other words, the conversion is not harmed “It is a constitutional requirement that freedom of science prevail when making decisions on scientific matters, and that the method and organization of decision-making conform to the constitutional value of scientific freedom.”

The argument is therefore similar to that where public services are outsourced to a private service provider, as they can perform the relevant tasks as well.

This runs counter to the argument of many critics of the decision, according to which, by placing it under the authority of a ministry and tying ELKH more in the bloodstream of the economy – meaning: it can be used more directly in economic terms, or research that supports the government. Politics takes priority – it seriously infringes on researchers’ freedom and makes scientific research a trivial tool. Although in many of these – for example the social sciences – there are areas of research that do not meet any of the criteria, but on the other hand, they can be useful to society.

However, the above argument was not convincing enough for AB, so it rejected other complaints than the right to property – seeing the performance of scientific research as a guaranteed public task even in the new administrative structure. Because it is “The Constitutional Court made it clear in its decision that it did not have the authority to review the effectiveness of the performance of public duties in connection with the regulation.”