Alkotmányozás és állambiztonság.Alkotmányossá válási törekvések az állambiztonsági reformkoncepciókban, 1989–1990
Constitution-making and State Security: Attempts at Adhering to the Constitution in the State Security Reform Concepts of 1989–1990

Summary/Abstract: The reform of the political system in the second half of the 1980s apparently also affected the state security service. One of the most important questions of power was how to determine the new structure and tasks of political police in the period of the transition and later. Several different concepts were developed by the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, the opposition and the state security service itself for the restructuring of political police. As part of the change, the position, role and future tasks of the security services had to be defined. Previously, the so-called state security tasks in Hungary were carried out on the basis of low-level secret regulations, which severely limited basic human rights laid down in the Constitution. During the year, the State Security Services came up with several proposals to solve the problems of constitutional transformation. However, these – feasible or unfit – propositions were disregarded by the leadership of the Ministry of Interior, the government and the legislature. Despite the relatively successful implementation of a democratic system in 1989, the transformation of the intelligence agencies remained incomplete. Intelligence organizations held fast to the old concept of an oversized, hyper-bureaucratic intelligence system. The system itself was changing but not at the expected pace and, to some extent, it kept carrying the baggage of its past. Nevertheless, the services kept referring to legality and constitutionalism day by day.

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