Hungarian American Coalition News, 2002 (11. évfolyam, 1-2. szám)
2002 / 2. szám
strong Hungarian communities in Slovakia and Romania. We understand that the challenge facing these two countries is enormous due to a lack of progress for the past 12 years in the specific, critical issues we enumerate below. However, an unparalleled opportunity exists now for Slovakia and Romania to provide the evidence in living up to their promises and demonstrate their commitment to democratic ideals. The ball is in their court. Romania 1. Continued Violation of the Sanctity of Private Property: Failure to Return Church and Communal Properties Illegally Confiscated Under Communist Rule1 The four historic Hungarian religious denominations (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Lutheran and Unitarian) have extensive documentation of at least 2,091 church properties illegally confiscated from them between 1945-1989 under communism. None of these properties—save six— have been returned to their rightful owners. 11 years after the fall of communism a Law on Restitution of Private Property was adopted on January 17, 2001 and is touted by the Romanian government as having “settled” the restitution issue. But in fact, this law explicitly excluded communal and church properties on the promise that these would be covered under a separate law. Today, there is still no such law. The decade-long delay by Romania constitutes an ongoing, major blow to religious freedom, civil society and the Hungarian minority's ability to maintain community and church life. The inviolability of private property is a fundamental pillar of democracy and indispensable element of a functioning market economy. But this principle is not entrenched in Romania and the government is recalcitrant on the issue: the Romanian constitution's provision that “private property shall be equally respected by law irrespective of its owner” (Article 41/2) is ignored; repeated Council of Europe and European Union documents calling on Romania since 1993 to settle this issue on the principle of restitution in integrum are snubbed; although the relevant international instruments have been ratified by Romania, they are immaterial. Even the United States' Special Envoy on Property Restitution Issues, Stuart Eisenstat, couldn't make headway on this issue. It is also become patently clear that even the numerous government decrees passed since 1996 as temporary, good-will measures to return select, high-profile buildings until a comprehensive law could be enacted were hollow promises, propagandistic in nature to obtain credibility for Romania abroad and lacking the requisite intention and means for their implementation. While the six properties mentioned above were returned to their rightful owners in this manner; the constitutional court, local councils, judicial system and even the government's very own Ministry of Culture stymie, hinder, and oppose restitution of the other properties identified in these decrees. On what grounds then is the latest deadline of April 30 agreed to by the ruling PSD to submit the above-mentioned necessary legislation to Parliament to be expected? 2. Failure to Restore the Independent Hungarian State University in Cluj Native-language education is the single most important factor in securing a national minority's identity and survival. Immediately after the 1989 Romanian revolution, the governing National Salvation Front explicitly pledged to restore the independent Hungarian-language Bolyai state university, which the former dictator abolished in 1959 by forcibly merging it with the Romanian Babes University. In the past decade, successive Romanian governments have dishonored the pledge through extra-legal measures (unlawfully ignoring a 1995 petition signed by a half-million citizens), diversion (offering a German-Hungarian university never seriously intended), deceit (claiming that the supposed “multi-cultural” character of the rump institution somehow compensates for the real article) and even threatening to disallow a privately-funded initiative (through proposals to deny accreditation unless “sufficient” Romanian-language instruction is offered). Today, after so much obfuscation, the government still has not issued the necessary instructions to allow two Hungarian-language divisions (Humanities and Natural Sciences/Mathematics) at the Babes-Bolyai University, and additional departments instructing in Hungarian in other divisions of the institution. Nor is there adequate Hungarian-language instruction at other, key state institutions such as the Gheorghe Dima Music Academy in Cluj, the University of Agricultural Sciences in Cluj, the Tirgu Mures Technical University and the Oradea University. These expansions are another commitment that the ruling PSD promised the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania in Article 7 of their Agreement for the year 2002. Babes-Bolyai President Andrei Marga 1 Parliamentary legislation on property restitution has currently taken place. 4 • Hungarian American Coalition • July 2002
