The National Assembly ( ) is the

parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. The unicameral body consists of 199 (386 between 1990 and 2014) members elected to four-year terms. Election of members is done using a

semi-proportional representation Semi-proportional representation characterizes multi-winner electoral systems which allow representation of minorities, but are not intended to reflect the strength of the competing political forces in close proportion to the votes they receive. Se ...

: a

mixed-member majoritarian representation Mixed-member majoritarian representation (MMM) is type of a mixed electoral system combining winner-take-all and proportional methods, where the disproportional results of the winner-take-all part are dominant over the ''proportional'' compon ...

with partial compensation via transfer votes and

mixed single vote A mixed single vote (MSV) is a type of ballot in mixed-member electoral systems, where voters cast a single vote in an election, which is used both for electing a local candidate and as a vote for a party affiliated with that candidate accordin ...

; involving single-member districts and one list vote; parties must win at least 5% of the popular vote in order to gain list seats. The Assembly includes 25 standing committees to debate and report on introduced bills and to supervise the activities of the ministers. The

Constitutional Court of Hungary The Constitutional Court of Hungary () is a special court of Hungary, making judicial review of the acts of the Parliament of Hungary. The official seat of the Constitutional Court is Budapest. Until 2012 the seat was Esztergom. The Constituti ...

has the right to challenge legislation on the grounds of constitutionality. Under communist rule, the National Assembly existed as the supreme organ of state power as the sole branch of government in Hungary, and per the principle of

unified power Unified power is the political power principle of communist states, whereby political power, instead of being separated into different branches as Montesquieu called for, is unified, in the state's case, in the highest organ of state power. This ...

, all state organs were subservient to it. Since 1902, the assembly has met in the

Hungarian Parliament Building The Hungarian Parliament Building ( , ), also known as the Parliament of Budapest after its location, is the seat of the National Assembly of Hungary, a notable landmark of Hungary, and a popular tourist destination in Budapest. It is situated o ...

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

. The current members are the

members of the National Assembly of Hungary (2022–2026) Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...

History

The

Diet of Hungary The Diet of Hungary or originally: Parlamentum Publicum / Parlamentum Generale () was the most important political assembly in Hungary since the 12th century, which emerged to the position of the supreme legislative institution in the Kingdom ...

() was a legislative institution in the medieval kingdom of Hungary from the 1290s, and in its successor states,

Royal Hungary Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family or royalty Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Roy ...

and the Habsburg kingdom of Hungary throughout the

Early Modern period The early modern period is a Periodization, historical period that is defined either as part of or as immediately preceding the modern period, with divisions based primarily on the history of Europe and the broader concept of modernity. There i ...

. The name of the legislative body was originally "Parlamentum" during the Middle Ages, the "Diet" expression gained mostly in the Early Modern period. It convened at regular intervals with interruptions during the period of 1527 to 1918, and again until 1946. In 1608, a

bicameral Bicameralism is a type of legislature that is divided into two separate Deliberative assembly, assemblies, chambers, or houses, known as a bicameral legislature. Bicameralism is distinguished from unicameralism, in which all members deliberate ...

legislature was enacted as the Royal Hungarian Diet, dividing the main board and the lower board (the board of envoys). Members of the main board (the upper house) were the high nobles and high priests (archbishops and bishops). The lower board was attended by representatives of the common nobility, clergy and civil order: elected representatives of the noble county, delegates of the free royal cities and representatives of the lower Church representatives. Approximately 10% of the total voting age population could vote for the elected delegates of the lower board (5% county nobility, 5% residents of free royal cities). The election of the noble delegates (1 delegate from each county) took place in the county delegate elections, after a long, noisy, courtier campaign, at the county hall. Delegates had issues from county assemblies about voting in exact things. The parliament consisted of about 500 people in the 17th–18th centuries. The articles of the 1790 diet set out that the diet should meet at least once every 3 years, but, since the diet was called by the

Habsburg monarchy The Habsburg monarchy, also known as Habsburg Empire, or Habsburg Realm (), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities (composite monarchy) that were ruled by the House of Habsburg. From the 18th century it is ...

, this promise was not kept on several occasions thereafter. As a result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, it was reconstituted in 1867. The Latin term ''Natio Hungarica'' ("Hungarian nation") was used to designate the political elite which had participation in the diet, consisting of the

nobility Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally appointed by and ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. T ...

, the Catholic clergy, and a few enfranchised burghers, regardless of language or ethnicity. Natio Hungarica was a geographic, institutional and juridico-political category. The democratic character of the Hungarian parliament was reestablished with the fall of the Iron Curtain and the

end End, END, Ending, or ENDS may refer to: End Mathematics *End (category theory) * End (topology) * End (graph theory) * End (group theory) (a subcase of the previous) * End (endomorphism) Sports and games *End (gridiron football) *End, a division ...

of the communist dictatorship in 1989. Today's parliament is still called the ''Országgyűlés,'' as in royal times, but is called the 'National Assembly' to distance itself from the historical royal diet.

Latest general election

Speakers of the National Assembly of Hungary

Historical composition of the National Assembly since 1990

Notes

References

External links

Official website

Official website
{{Coord, 47, 30, 26, N, 19, 02, 45, E, source:kolossus-plwiki, display=title 1989 establishments in Hungary