Top Tweets for #SovereigntyProtection

almost 3 years ago

@RenewEurope Hungary is restoring #ruleoflaw! Fidesz has just put forward the draft bill on #SovereigntyProtection to prevent further foreign interference in elections.

182

Daniel Hegedus

@DanielHegedus82

almost 3 years ago

In the night of November 22, the #Fidesz party caucus submitted the draft #SovereigntyProtection bill to the #Hungarian parliament. Find below my snap analysis about this new intimidation measure to deter civic activism and dissent of the #Orbán regime. The language of the draft is available here: https://t.co/ky6dXIzfOv 👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇 The Draft Law aims to establish a new state institution, the Bureau of Sovereignty Protection (“BSP”), with analytical, investigative, and reporting tasks and competences. The chairman of BSP will be nominated by the Prime Minister and will be appointed by the president for six years. The Parliament is not planned to play any role in the appointment procedure. BSP’s main task will be to map foreign funding flows and other influence measures that may impact the sovereignty of Hungary, with a particular emphasis on alleged election interference, and attempted influencing of electoral will and the public discourse. For this aim, BSP can request the cooperation of any state institutions (§4 & 5), including the umbrella organization of the Hungarian intelligence agencies, the National Information Center (§24). The BSP will publish annual and ad hoc reports. While the Government and the National Security Committee of the Hungarian Parliament will be the main addressees of these reports, they will be publicly available as well. In this regard, it is important to mention that the BSP can request the release of confidential information for the purpose of publication [§9(3)]. Hence it is fair to say that the BSP will mainly serve as an institutional façade that allows the instrumentalization of intelligence information gathered with surveillance techniques for the purpose of public communication and intimidation campaigns. Furthermore, BSP will be able to summon representatives of investigated organizations before the National Security Committee of the Hungarian parliament. (§ 12) The law itself underlines that the activities of BSP are no administrative acts and therefore they cannot be subject to appeals before administrative or ordinary courts. This lack of responsibility in legal sense will make it impossible for targeted persons and organizations to seek legal remedy if information published by BSP are manipulative or fabricated. (§6 (7) & §8). Formally, BSP will inform any organizations investigated and mentioned in the reports, offering them the opportunity to comment on the findings, but due to the lack of appeal opportunity actually there is no instrument that could force BSP to consider the comments. §7 obliges investigated organizations to provide BSP all requested documents, informations for the purpose of its investigations without any financial compensation or administrative charges, which may open-up a door for potential abuse and putting paralyzing administrative burden on investigated CSOs. According to the draft law, all organizations might be subject to surveillance and intimidation measures that aim at influencing the democratic debate or at disseminating manipulated information or disinformation. That makes both civil society and independent media its primary targets. Particularly exposed might be electoral integrity watchdogs and CSOs engaged in democratic education, especially if running election related advocacy or PR campaigns. However, candidates and representatives of civil society organizations supporting candidates at elections (which used to be a rather widespread phenomenon during municipal elections in Hungary), who/which accept foreign funding may not only be targets of surveillance and intimidation measures, but also of criminal prosecution and are threatened with up to 3 years in jail. The draft law applies the same campaign financing rules for civil society organizations as that apply for parties. It empowers the State Audit Office to monitor the origin of finances even in case of CSOs engaged in municipal elections. In case of the criminal offense of accepting and using foreign funding, candidates/CSOs need to pay the double of the received foreign funding as fine and CSOs quasi automatically lose their status as public benefit organizations. In nutshell, the draft law creates a perfect setting of intimidation that will most certainly discourage any CSOs from applying to foreign support if they plan to play any role in municipal elections and most likely also further CSOs the activities of which can be interpreted as having any influence on the public debate. It is important to mention that the draft law does not limit the application of any of its measures to the campaign period, as reported previously by Hungarian media. This will discourage CSOs even further from applying to foreign funding. The Hungarian government will most likely try to orchestrate the law as a legitim part of the Transatlantic/European efforts to combat malign foreign influence and disinformation. The explanatory part of the draft legislation refers to existing EU recommendations in this regard, citing a report of the European Parliament’s INGE special committee as well. In fact, the draft law is a further significant step of the Hungarian regime to autocratize Hungary’s domestic political environment, strike down on civil society, and discourage civic activism and political opposition. While the draft law will certainly serve as a campaign tool until the June 2024 EP elections and will most likely challenged by the European Commission, its intimidating, negative impact on Hungarian civil society can hardly be overestimated. @GoodLobbyProfs @Verfassungsblog @liliebayer

DanielHegedus82's tweet photo. In the night of November 22, the #Fidesz party caucus submitted the draft #SovereigntyProtection bill to the #Hungarian parliament.
Find below my snap analysis about this new intimidation measure to deter civic activism and dissent of the #Orbán regime.
The language of the draft is available here: https://t.co/ky6dXIzfOv
👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇
The Draft Law aims to establish a new state institution, the Bureau of Sovereignty Protection (“BSP”), with analytical, investigative, and reporting tasks and competences.
The chairman of BSP will be nominated by the Prime Minister and will be appointed by the president for six years. The Parliament is not planned to play any role in the appointment procedure.
BSP’s main task will be to map foreign funding flows and other influence measures that may impact the sovereignty of Hungary, with a particular emphasis on alleged election interference, and attempted influencing of electoral will and the public discourse. For this aim, BSP can request the cooperation of any state institutions (§4 & 5), including the umbrella organization of the Hungarian intelligence agencies, the National Information Center (§24).
The BSP will publish annual and ad hoc reports. While the Government and the National Security Committee of the Hungarian Parliament will be the main addressees of these reports, they will be publicly available as well. In this regard, it is important to mention that the BSP can request the release of confidential information for the purpose of publication [§9(3)]. Hence it is fair to say that the BSP will mainly serve as an institutional façade that allows the instrumentalization of intelligence information gathered with surveillance techniques for the purpose of public communication and intimidation campaigns. Furthermore, BSP will be able to summon representatives of investigated organizations before the National Security Committee of the Hungarian parliament. (§ 12)
The law itself underlines that the activities of BSP are no administrative acts and therefore they cannot be subject to appeals before administrative or ordinary courts. This lack of responsibility in legal sense will make it impossible for targeted persons and organizations to seek legal remedy if information published by BSP are manipulative or fabricated. (§6 (7) & §8).
Formally, BSP will inform any organizations investigated and mentioned in the reports, offering them the opportunity to comment on the findings, but due to the lack of appeal opportunity actually there is no instrument that could force BSP to consider the comments.
§7 obliges investigated organizations to provide BSP all requested documents, informations for the purpose of its investigations without any financial compensation or administrative charges, which may open-up a door for potential abuse and putting paralyzing administrative burden on investigated CSOs.
According to the draft law, all organizations might be subject to surveillance and intimidation measures that aim at influencing the democratic debate or at disseminating manipulated information or disinformation. That makes both civil society and independent media its primary targets. Particularly exposed might be electoral integrity watchdogs and CSOs engaged in democratic education, especially if running election related advocacy or PR campaigns.
However, candidates and representatives of civil society organizations supporting candidates at elections (which used to be a rather widespread phenomenon during municipal elections in Hungary), who/which accept foreign funding may not only be targets of surveillance and intimidation measures, but also of criminal prosecution and are threatened with up to 3 years in jail.
The draft law applies the same campaign financing rules for civil society organizations as that apply for parties. It empowers the State Audit Office to monitor the origin of finances even in case of CSOs engaged in municipal elections. In case of the criminal offense of accepting and using foreign funding, candidates/CSOs need to pay the double of the received foreign funding as fine and CSOs quasi automatically lose their status as public benefit organizations.
In nutshell, the draft law creates a perfect setting of intimidation that will most certainly discourage any CSOs from applying to foreign support if they plan to play any role in municipal elections and most likely also further CSOs the activities of which can be interpreted as having any influence on the public debate.
It is important to mention that the draft law does not limit the application of any of its measures to the campaign period, as reported previously by Hungarian media. This will discourage CSOs even further from applying to foreign funding.
The Hungarian government will most likely try to orchestrate the law as a legitim part of the Transatlantic/European efforts to combat malign foreign influence and disinformation. The explanatory part of the draft legislation refers to existing EU recommendations in this regard, citing a report of the European Parliament’s INGE special committee as well.
In fact, the draft law is a further significant step of the Hungarian regime to autocratize Hungary’s domestic political environment, strike down on civil society, and discourage civic activism and political opposition. While the draft law will certainly serve as a campaign tool until the June 2024 EP elections and will most likely challenged by the European Commission, its intimidating, negative impact on Hungarian civil society can hardly be overestimated.
@GoodLobbyProfs @Verfassungsblog @liliebayer

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