CSABA VARGA Transition? to Rule of Law? Varga Jogallami Angol Proba Tartalek Ks Korr01.Qxp 2008.01.23
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PoLíSz series CSABA VARGA Transition? To rule of law? varga_jogallami_angol_proba_tartalek_ks_korr01.qxp 2008.01.23. 12:28 Page 1 CSABA VARGA TRANSITION? TO RULE OF LAW? Constitutionalism and Transitional Justice Challenged in Central & Eastern Europe varga_jogallami_angol_proba_tartalek_ks_korr01.qxp 2008.01.23. 12:28 Page 2 CSABA VARGA was born in Pécs. Since graduation in law in 1965, he has been an academic researcher at the Institute for Legal Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, since 1991 as scientific adviser. He became a Professor of Law at the metropolitan Eötvös Loránd University in the same year. By the foundation of the Faculty of Law of the Pázmány Péter Catholic University of Hungary in 1995, he founded and has also been heading its Institute for Legal Philosophy, granted by the National Accreditation Committee in 2006 the sole title “Place of Excellence” for a chair in the country. One of the founders (as its secretary between 1976–2006 and since then as its chairman) of the Hungarian National Section of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (IVR); a political adviser to and a member of the Advisory Board of the first free-elected Prime Minister of Hungary (1991–1994), serving as an editorial board member of Current Legal Theory (1983–1998), Ratio Juris (1988–), Legal Theory (1993–1999), as well as of Világosság [a philosophical forum] (2003–). In 2004, he was elected as an associated member of the International Academy of Comparative Law. His bibliography is available in both http://varga.jak.ppke.hu and Theatrvm legale mvndi Symbola Cs. Varga oblata, ed. Péter Cserne et al. (Budapest: Szent István Társulat 2007), pp. 609–674 [Philosophiæ Ivris / Bibliotheca Ivridica: Libri amicorvm 24]. varga_jogallami_angol_proba_tartalek_ks_korr01.qxp 2008.01.23. 12:28 Page 3 CSABA VARGA TRANSITION? TO RULE OF LAW? Constitutionalism and Transitional Justice Challenged in Central & Eastern Europe Pomáz, 2008 varga_jogallami_angol_proba_tartalek_ks_korr01.qxp 2008.01.23. 12:28 Page 4 On the cover a symbol of action with counter-force from the Sachsenspiegel [Heidelberg Univ. Bibl., Cpg 164, fol. 14v & 21v] For the realisation of the tasks defined in and thanks to the finance granted by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund project No. K 62382 (2006–2009) Parallel edition with Jogállami? Átmenetünk? (Kráter, Pomáz, 2007) [PoLíSz-könyvek 6] in an enlarged version ISBN 978-963-9735-44-6 ISSN 1589-3405 © Csaba Varga, 2007 © Kráter Mûhely Egyesület, 2007 Published by Kráter Mûhely Egyesület (Kráter Workshop Association) Hungary, HU-2013 Pomáz, Búzavirág str. 2. Tel./Fax: +36 28 328 491 [email protected] * www.krater.hu Printed in G-Art-Print Ltd. varga_jogallami_angol_proba_tartalek_ks_korr01.qxp 2008.01.23. 12:28 Page 5 CONTENTS TOWARDS A TRANSITION TO RULE OF LAW Radical Change and Unbalance of Law in a Central Europe under the Rule of Myths, not of Law [1996] . .9 1. Post-modernity Diagnosed [9] 2. Radical Change with Radical Uniformisation [10] 3. Some Symptoms [16] (a) Unpreparedness [17] (b) Utopianism [18] (c) Bibó-syndrome [19] (d) Between the West – and the West [21] 4. Brave New Start with Tradition Left Behind [23] Legal Scholarship at the Threshold of a New Millennium in the Central and Eastern European Region [1997] . .26 (Naivety from the Beginning) [27] 1. (The Limits of Law-modernisation) [33] 2. (The Need for Scholarly Reconsideration) [34] 3. (Rebuilding the Social Contexture of Law) [36] 4. (Following Alien Patterns) [37] 5. (Want for Clarification) [42] 6. (New Unorganic Components) [46] (Past Legacy in Legal Experience and Scholarship [46]) Rule of Law: Imperfectly Realised, or Perfected without Realisation? [2000] . 50 1. Declarations [50] 2. Question-marks [54] Rule of Law – at the Crossroads of Challenges [2001] . 59 (Law: Values & Techniques [59] Human-centeredness and Practical Orientation [66] Theological and Anthropological Foundations [74] An Irreplaceably Own Task [80] Recapitulation [81] A Final Remark in Comparison [82]) Rule of Law, or the Dilemma of an Ethos: to be Gardened or Mechanicised [2007] . 85 I (Two Models for Transition, Post-WWII and Post-Communism) [85] II (With Differing Understandings) [91] III (What is to Remain if the Peak is Shaken?) [95] IV (Circus Trainer, or a Gardener?) [98] V (The German Master v. the Hungarian Disciple) [100] THE BURDEN OF THE PAST Why Having Failed in Facing with the Past? [2003] . 107 Creeping Renovation of Law through Constitutional Judiciary? [2005] . 117 1. Transitions in the Age of Globalisation [117] 2. Constitutional Assessment: the Hungarian Way [122] 3. An Example: Human Dignity in Isolation and Sterility [133] 4. Public Law Privatised with the State Targeted as a Common Enemy [138] 5. A Future with no Past [146] 6. Legality with Justice Silenced: Crimes and Unpunishment [147] 7. Rule of Constitutional Court Dicta, not of Law [154] 8. A Sliding Self-image [157] What Has Happened and What Is Happening ever Since (In Remembrance of Deportations to Forced Work Camps at Hortobágy) [2005] . .161 (Preliminaries to a Betrayal [161] “Deportation” with Consequences [165] “Deportation” with no Silence Broken Since [168] Considerations on How to Treat the Past after the Communism has Fallen [171] Cul-de-sac as Assessed even by Liberal Standards [175]) varga_jogallami_angol_proba_tartalek_ks_korr01.qxp 2008.01.23. 12:28 Page 6 1956 Judged by Ethics and Law, or the Moral Unity of the Law’s Responsiveness as a Post-totalitarian Dilemma [2006] . .178 (Law and its Socio-ethical Basis [178] The Necessity of an Ethical Minimum in Law [185] The Drama of 1956 [187] The Shame of Posterity for the Law getting Silenced [192]) PERSPECTIVES Failed Crusade: American Self-confidence, Russian Catastrophe [2002] . .199 (1. The Pattern-provider and its Transitology [199] 2.a. Organised Pressure on Making Patterns Followed [202] 2.b. Provoked Bankruptcy [206] 2.c. Cui prodest? [210] 2.d. Democracy Conceived in Tutelage [214] 3. Becoming a Pray of Globalism [216]) “Radical Evil” on Trial [2002] . .220 A. Historical Background [222] B. Normative Dimensions [225] a) Political Aspects [225] b) Moral Aspects [227] c) Legal Aspects [227] Rule of Law between the Scylla of Imported Patterns and the Charybdis of Actual Realisations (The Experience of Lithuania) [2004] . .236 Transitology Questioned [236] Lithuania [238] (Ideal: Law & Balance [239] Ideal: Rights Counterbalanced by Duties [241] Anything Except to Democracy in Outcome [242] Legal Personalism as a Response [246]) A Call for Local Experience Assessed [246] WHAT CAN BE HOPED FOR NOW? In Bondage of Paradoxes, or Deadlock at the Peak of the Law we have Created for Ourselves [2007] . .251 (A ‘Good’ Constitution [251] With Moral Crisis behind It [254] In Want of Legal Defence Available [259]) At the Crossroads of Civil Obedience and Civil Disobedience [2007] . .262 (Civil Disobedience [262] Civil Obedience [267]) Subject index . .273 Index of Normative Materials . .283 Name index . .284 Bibliography of CSABA VARGA’s further books . .290 varga_jogallami_angol_proba_tartalek_ks_korr01.qxp 2008.01.23. 12:28 Page 7 TOWARDS A TRANSITION TO RULE OF LAW varga_jogallami_angol_proba_tartalek_ks_korr01.qxp 2008.01.23. 12:28 Page 8 varga_jogallami_angol_proba_tartalek_ks_korr01.qxp 2008.01.23. 12:28 Page 9 Towards a transition to rule of law RADICAL CHANGE AND UNBALANCE OF LAW in a Central Europe under the Rule of Myths, not of Law* 1. Post-modernity Diagnosed In contrast to the end of World War Two, when allied administration, avoiding implanting home democracy into an emptied space, resorted rather to orders: from above, from outside, for long years, from within the comfort of military administration and censorship, in order to re-educate people through imposing values upon them so as to make society prepared for being able to operate democratic machinery with optimum results, transition from Socialism as a democratic process from the beginning, building step by step (as marshalled by historical incidentalities of given moments) upon the instrumentality of the rule of law, was to base on the only legacy left: annihilation of the sensitivity to public affairs and communitarian interests, extinction of the very idea of a self-governing civil society, emptied morals, and whatever kind of authority shattered. Instead of an allied care for that dictatorship would be rejected without offering it the chance of transforming * In its first version in Hungarian, ‘A jogváltás paradoxonai’ [Paradoxes of the change-over of laws] Magyar Szemle V (1996) 12, pp. 1186–1196, and in English, as commissioned by the Nagoya CALE for 2004, in Hungary’s Legal Assistance Experiences in the Age of Globalization ed. Mamoru Sadakata (Nagoya: Nagoya University Graduate School of Law Center for Asian Legal Exchange 2006), pp. 185–195, under the common title I gave to the project as ‘Transition to Rule of Law: A Philosophical Assessment of Challenges and Realisations in a Historico-comparative Perspective’. In the research scheme, I promised (p. 185) that “The research is to focus on the nature of the transition after the fall of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe in general and in Hungary in particular with special emphasis on the issue of adequacy of ends and means in the process. The demanding complexity of both ends under limiting conditions and the available store of instrumental patterns are to be analysed in parallel. The aim is to show the emerging contrast between points of view which, on the final analysis,