The legislative consultation on adoption of the new Hungarian Constitution has recently started and the parliamentary preparatory commission in charge has invited several persons and institutions to submit their views and recommendations in relation to the legislative concept of the new constitution.

András Jóri, the Hungarian Data Protection Commissioner has recently announced its proposal on the future regulation of the new Hungarian Data Protection Agency which contains remarkable comments:

András Jóri stressed that the institution of the Data Protection Commissioner should be renewed, and the name of this post should be changed to “Information Commissioner”, since the Hungarian Commissioner is not only responsible for the enforcement of data protection legislation, but also for the supervision of compliance with freedom of information provisions.

Jóri holds that the Hungarian legislation does not fully comply with the recently articulated guidelines of the European Court of Justice on the independent status of the Data Protection Agencies, and the new Constitution should also make it clear that the Information Commissioner does not function like an ombudsman, but it is rather a sui generis institution with administrative powers which should conduct its procedure in a formalized manner. András Jóri maintains that the institution of the Information Commissioner should be sharply separated from the respective regulatory approach which would treat the Commissioner as an ombudsman. Finally, András Jóri considers that the administrative competences / enforcement powers of the Commissioner should be strengthened, as the Hungarian Data Protection Commissioner currently cannot impose a fine for the breach of data protection laws, while enforcement actions of the Commissioner should be subject to the general rules of the administrative procedure, since this could duly secure the rights of the clients of the enforcement procedure.

The letter of the Data Protection Commissioner addressed to the parliamentary preparatory commission is available here.