The National Election Committee, acting within its competence as laid down in Section 34 (2)a)of Act C of 1997 on Electoral Procedure (hereinafter: Ve.), issues the following

resolution:

According to Section 21 of the Ve., election committees are independent bodies of voters, subordinate exclusively to the law, whose primary task is to establish the election result, ensure the integrity and legality of the elections, enforce impartiality, and, if necessary, restore the legal order of the election. Election committees are:a)the ballot counting committee,b)the local election committee,c)the parliamentary individual constituency election committee,d)the regional election committee,e)the National Election Committee.

Based on Section 99/K (1), the following election committees operate in the election of members of the European Parliament:a)ballot counting committee,b)local election committee performing the tasks of the ballot counting committee in settlements with a single polling district,c)regional election committee,d)National Election Committee.

The main rule of Section 22 (1) is that only a voter with a permanent address in the constituency - or in the case of a local election committee, in the settlement - may be a member of the election committee.

According to paragraphs (2)-(3), the following persons may not be members of the election committee: the President of the Republic, a state leader, the head of an administrative office, a representative, the president of a county assembly, a mayor, a notary, a chief notary, a member of an election office, a civil servant of an administrative body operating in the jurisdiction of the election committee, and a candidate. Furthermore, a member of a nominating organization that has nominated a candidate in the constituency, or a relative of a candidate running in the constituency, cannot be an elected member of the election committee.

Based on paragraph (4), persons who are related to each other may not be members of election committees that may come into a decision-making or decision-reviewing relationship with each other in the legal remedy procedure.

The individual concepts defined in the preceding paragraphs (2)-(4) are defined in the corresponding sections of Section 149 of the Ve.

Based on Section 3d)of the Ve., when applying the rules of the electoral procedure, the participants in the election must, among other things, give effect to the fundamental principle of good faith and proper exercise of rights.

The Ve. defines the institution of alternate membership in the election committee as follows:

According to the first sentence of Section 23 (1), the three members and the necessary number of alternates of the ballot counting committee are elected by the representative body of the local government after the general election of parliamentary representatives has been called, no later than the 20th day before the day of the vote; the head of the local election office proposes their persons. According to paragraph (2), the three members - and five in a settlement with a single polling district - and the necessary number of alternates of the local election committee are elected by the representative body of the local government after the general election of local government representatives and mayors has been called, no later than the 42nd day before the day of the vote; the head of the local election office proposes their persons. Based on paragraph (3), the three members and the necessary number of alternates of the parliamentary individual constituency or the regional election committee are elected by the metropolitan or county assembly; the head of the regional election office proposes their persons. Finally, paragraph (4) stipulates that the five members and the necessary number of alternates of the National Election Committee are elected by the Parliament; the minister responsible for the conduct of elections and referendums proposes their persons, taking into account the proposals of the parties.

According to Section 27 (1), if an elected member of the election committee has died or their mandate has ceased for a reason specified in Section 26 (4), the alternate member takes their place. In the absence of an alternate member, the representative body of the local government, or the metropolitan or county assembly or a committee designated by them, or in the case of the National Election Committee, the Parliament, elects a new member. Based on paragraph (4), if on the day of the vote the number of members of the ballot counting committee is less than five, or the number of members of the ballot counting committee designated to conduct absentee voting is less than seven, the head of the local election office supplements the committee from among the alternate members or members of another ballot counting committee. If it is not possible to supplement the ballot counting committee in this way, the head of the regional election office arranges for it by appointing sworn members or alternates of a ballot counting committee from another settlement.

Section 26 of the Ve. provides a detailed and exhaustive list of the cessation of the mandate of an election committee member, as follows:

"(1) The mandate of the elected members of the election committee lasts until the constituent meeting of the election committee established for the next general election - as defined in Section 23.

(2) The mandate of an appointed member of the election committee - with the exception of the provisions of paragraph (3) - ceases with the publication of the final result of the election.

(3) The mandate of the members appointed to the National Election Committee by the parties that form a parliamentary group at the constituent meeting of the Parliament according to Section 25 lasts until the date specified in paragraph (1) or until the parliamentary group ceases to exist. Those parties that have not appointed a member to the National Election Committee according to Section 25, but have formed a parliamentary group in the Parliament, may appoint one member each to the National Election Committee, whose mandate lasts until the date specified in paragraph (1) or until the parliamentary group ceases to exist.

(4) The mandate of a member of the election committee also ceases beyond the provisions of paragraphs (1)-(3):

a)if the legal conditions for the mandate have ceased,

b)if the election committee has established a conflict of interest for its member,

c)by resignation,

d)by withdrawal of the mandate."

The provisions of the Ve. regarding legal remedies [Sections 77-85, Section 99, Section 99/P, Section 130, Section 131, Section 146, and Section 147] contain, among other things, the deadlines for submitting and adjudicating legal remedies, which are a loss of rights for the person submitting the legal remedy, and for the election committee and court adjudicating it.

In this regard, according to Section 77 (1), anyone may submit a complaint on the grounds of a violation of the legal provisions applicable to the election or the fundamental principles of the election and the electoral procedure (Section 3) (hereinafter together: violation of law).

According to Section 79 (1), any voter, candidate, nominating organization, or legal person concerned in the case may submit an appeal against a first-instance decision of the election committee.

Based on Section 73 (2), a decision of the ballot counting committee establishing the polling district result can only be appealed in conjunction with an appeal against a decision of the election committee establishing the election result.

According to Section 73 (4), an appeal against a decision of the election committee establishing the election result can be submitted on the grounds of:

a)the unlawfulness of the decision of the ballot counting committee establishing the polling district result, or

b)a violation of the rules on the aggregation of polling district results and the establishment of the election result.

Based on the above provisions of the Ve., the National Election Committee establishes that:

a)the rights and obligations of elected and appointed members, as well as alternate members (hereinafter all three groups together: member) of the election committees are the same throughout their mandate, except for those rights and obligations where the Ve. explicitly provides for a difference;

b)in this regard, the existence of a conflict of interest for members must be examined in the same way and continuously throughout the mandate;

c)anyone is entitled, and those obliged by law are required, to report an existing conflict of interest of a member to the competent election body; this obligation particularly burdens the member affected by the conflict of interest [Ve. Section 3d)];

d)an existing conflict of interest of a member detected in the manner described above leads to the establishment of the conflict of interest [Ve. Section 26 (4)b)] throughout the mandate;

e)within the deadlines for loss of rights specified in the legal remedy procedures of the Ve., an existing conflict of interest of a member and its legal consequences can be invoked in the legal remedy procedure;

f)after the expiry of the deadlines for loss of rights specified in the legal remedy procedures of the Ve., a previously detected conflict of interest of a member that no longer exists at the time of detection has no legal consequences in the electoral procedure.

Dr. Lajos Ficzere

President of the National Election Committee

* Text established by the 5/2010. OVB resolution