M: Dear Sándor Fülöp, we would like to learn from you, how the establishment of this commissioner took place. What were important steps?

S: The process started back in the early 1990s and there was an NGO movement behind it. Scientific and civic organisations pressed for this institution and by the end of 2007 they achieved a broadly supported agreement and then our parliament accepted that almost unequivocally; I think three or four were against it. There were so many people and groups involved… but important steps were when Laszlo Solyom, then a university professor but now our president, wrote the first concrete proposal in 2000. Also, in 2002, two socialist parliamentarians inserted a private bill to the parliament. It failed then, but one of them, Katalin Szili, is now the chair of the parliament. So in 2007 we had and still have two very influential people fully supportive of our task – this has also helped in several recent cases where we had difficulties with the ministry of justice, for example, that wanted to limit public participation in administrative cases.

M: So you must have a mandate that some people may find disturbing - could you outline briefly what your tasks are and where can you intervene?

S: As with all ombudspersons, the primary task is to handle constitutional complaints. In our case we deal with constitutional rights of all Hungarians to environmental protection and a healthy environment. The second task of our office is parliamentary advocacy of public concerns. So we may check legal drafts like, for example, the forestry act and point out how these decisions impact stakeholder participation, including the possibilities of the environmental authorities to have a say in the relevant administrative procedures. In the forestry case environmental authorities would have been constrained in the forestry permitting cases and we successfully amended their procedural position in the parliamentary debate. And we have a third task that is quite new and quite unique. We may conduct own research and studies on topics that are really important for future generations. So one quite obviously is climate change, or the importance of local communities for sustainability in the long run. One example is the “Living Villages” groups. “Small is beautiful” is their slogan and they seek to secure water, food, electricity etc. locally. We agreed with two university research groups that together with our experts and lawyers we are going to study these groups and propagate their strengths to the wider circles of our society. And we help them solve their legal problems. They very frequently come across bureaucratic blockages because administrative bodies are not accustomed to such initiatives. If a larger community has several dozens of kids they would like to raise them according to their values and not send them to state schools or municipal schools that is difficult. And local markets - even if the food is healthy, paradoxically enough the local plant protection, animal protection or public health authorities make their life difficult, just because of this not being a regular case.

M: Right. So if I imagine being a Hungarian citizen I can come to you whenever I feel that the rights that the constitution gives me - and that therefore should be given to the future generations as well - are being violated. Or if legislation that is in place is ignored, right?

S: Exactly. In our statements we deal with the concrete problem of the complainant and we try to point out how this problem came about. What kind of legal arrangements or structural background in procedures or authorities made this occurrence possible. So while the ombudsman offices don’t have administrative authority, or at least very limited administrative authority, we have very wide rights to reveal the facts; and that is our strength. Every door is open for us and we can even look at the secret files - naturally with certain guarantees, we don’t want to cause unnecessary harm to the state bodies. We seek to clarify the cases in a thorough way from several angles, from legal, international legal, and different professional angles. So we usually work in teams on the cases. I think that even if we cannot order the administrative body to do this and that, we might be in a position to change the decision dramatically, either by publishing our results directly or ask our complainants or local NGOs to disseminate our findings and to lobby the local municipal consuls with this information.

M: And you can also stop a certain project, right? If you really feel …

S: That is exceptional. If we really feel that the procedures must be halted because otherwise irreversible environmental harm could happen, then exceptionally we have the right to suspend a permit or authorization of a particular project.

M: I would like to conclude by asking you about the vision of what you want to achieve with your 35 employees – could you outline maybe two, three things that you would like to change in your six years of definite mandate? Also maybe in the general political climate in Hungary?

S: Yes, it is very difficult to remove an ombudsman that’s true. So I hope that after the six years I will be able to tell that public participation and environmental democracy level was raised partly because of our activities. Compared to the environmental ministry 35 people is a dwarf organization, but compared to an NGO we have enormous resources.
Yes, my ambition is to raise the level and effectiveness of public participation because the Hungarian environmental NGOs, grass roots and more established as well, have popped up out of nothing. Before the change of regime there was no civil sector and now we have at least 200 official organisations and thousands of really hard working, operating, local grass roots NGOs, environmental NGOs. I am personally, and I think many Hungarians are, very proud of this civil sector. But they need help. So that’s one of our main purposes; to empower them and to encourage them that if they pick up a local environmental conflict they are not alone. And with our legal analyses and professional strengths and network connections we can really support them. A lot of small such pieces combine to quite substantial changes in the environmental democracy. And that’s a key issue, to have the 1000 ears and eyes of the local people standing in front of a station or an illegal waste dump, or announcing where water pollution takes place. This raises our environmental quality and life quality, life expectancy, here in Hungary.
Also, environmental law is not too much cultivated as a profession in our country, and I think our almost 40 are becoming a good seed for the development of this profession. So that’s another issue, that’s why I am happy that we had this workshop with the BalatonGroup today at our office. You could see the faces of these young lawyers and young professionals; they were really enthusiastic and happy with that. And I am sure that professionally that was a big impetus for their development.

M: Thank you, Sándor, so much for these first hand insights of what the protection of the rights of future generations means in practice. I do look forward to continue this exchange. The World Future Council will do what it can to promote your office as a best institutional representation of future generations. And we hope to learn from you, and we hope that some of the tools for future-proof policy making that we are developing may help your cause!

S: That would be great. Thank you.