Ságvári Ágnes (szerk.): Budapest. The History of a Capital (Budapest, 1975)
Documents
tional interests of public administration and the economy in general. The supreme authority which this bill vests in the chief burgomaster goes well beyond this limitation. We are of the opinion that the post of chief burgomaster is quite unnecessary, since the government, being on the spot, can act through official experts, and without any agent, for its powers of control and supervision with a proper respect for the principle of self-government. The function of chairman of the General Assembly could be exercised by the elected first officer of the autonomous body, or by the person elected from among the councillors best qualified and designated to fill this position. All these principles were already adumbrated in the debate over the 1872 Act, and since that time have triumphed throughout the world. The present bill, on the contrary, marks a serious regression even to the law established at present, for it plans to confer on the chief burgomaster a completely unprecedented and unexampled right to intervene in the conduct of both the intellectual and economic questions of the autonomous municipality. On this point the bill puts the capital in a far more unfavourable position than the other county and town municipalities in which the lord-lieutenants, the representatives of the executive power, possess much more limited authority under the law. The chief burgomaster given the right of appointment makes the functioning of a self-governing municipality illusory, for it deprives it of the right, but leaves it with the responsibility. The provision in the bill permitting the mayor to appoint only those persons to the staff of instructors and teachers whose appointment has been first approved by the chief burgomaster reflects with stark severity a state of affairs where all the rights fall within the jurisdiction of the government while all the responsibilities burden the inhabitants of the capital. These irreconcilable opposites must be eliminated, and a bill must be framed on this question which is based on the harmonization of rights and responsibilities and reconciles the principle, freedom and responsibility of autonomous government. It follows inevitably from this principle that some rights must not be acquired at the expense of others, and consequently the present system of elections based on educational qualifications must be maintained. The election of the higher officials to permanent posts would appear to be adopted rather to a system of appointing them, and is another example of this random, overhasty work of codification that plays havoc with principles. ... 2. The principle that the rights and interests of the tax-paying citizens are to be solely and exclusively protected by those constitutionally elected to this office must be embodied in the composition of the Municipal Board. On no account whatever shall any one be a member of the Municipal Council unless he has been mandated by the enfranchised citizens. The majority must not be degraded to the status of a minority, nor must a minority be elevated to the status of a majority, through plural votes granted to selected constituencies. Act XXX of 1929 on the reorganization of public administration simply and clearly lays down that the number of Municipal Board members shall so conform to the number of inhabitants in the municipality as to provide one member of the Municipal Board to each seven hundred and fifty inhabitants approximately in the counties, and to about five hundred inhabitants in the municipal boroughs. Their number shall not be less than one hundred and fifty, and not more than four hundred and fifty in the counties, and not less than a hundred and twenty, and not more than a hundred and eighty in the municipal boroughs. ... What humiliation for the enfranchised citizens of Budapest that while the largest pro106
