The right to a healthy environment is mentioned in the Constitution twice, first under the basic institutions and regulations as part of the priority list of citizen rights. (Art. 18) Secondly, it is listed among the more detailed descriptions of civil rights, according to Article 70/D, Section (1) in cohabitation with public health.
Other important constitutional regulations from the public participation point of view are the right of access to information of public interest granted under Art. 61 (1) which is detailed by the Data Protection Act of 1992, the right to peaceful assembly granted under Art. 62 (detailed rules were issued in Act III. of 1989.), the right of association (the Association Act, Act II. of 1989 expanded this right), and the right to submit complaints (a detailed regulation already existed in 1977, but questions about its effectiveness and sincerity remain).
There is no separate right to petition the Constitutional Court for review, although the details of this right exist in Act XXXII. of 1989, on the Constitutional Court.
The basic constitutional rights have no direct practical meaning in themselves, although there are several acts which detail the definite rights and responsibilities. However, citizens and NGOs often base their public participation activities on these rights.
At national level, the basic act about legislation, Act XI. of 1987, gives some additional rules aimed at public participation in legislation. There is a general declaration that citizens must be significantly involved in legislation and in issues directly concerning their life relations. Naturally, this is subjective and the practice can be called "cautious" in this respect, which means that only one or two draft legislation receive publicity yearly. On the other hand, there are detailed guarantees in the Act of Legislation to ensure that the public's opinion can be expressed in merit. Consequently, the Act deals with questions of deadline for public opinion - not only does the main law have to be publicized, but the executive norms, as well.
Only the central level regulation contains some public participation elements regarding legislation. At the local level, the drafting is not regulated. In practice, it is the task of the municipality clerk and his or her staff. Since it is not regulated by the law, we cannot exclude the possibility that an NGO or a group of citizens will come up with a draft ordinance, but there are no such recorded cases at present.
This branch of rights is only partly regulated at constitutional level (local initiative and referendum are covered by local political rights for citizens), the majority and essence of their regulation can be found on lower level regulation as Acts and Governmental Orders.
There is certainly a rule that at central level, the professional element of decisionmaking has precedent over public participation. Although the legal institutes of the referendum and the people's initiative are regulated both for central and local level, only the local level ones are regularly used. Moreover, at local level there are other institutes serving immediate democracy. Those are: the public hearing and peopleÔs fora of the local municipalities, both regulated by the Act LXV of 1990 on Self Government in Articles 13. and 18. respectively. Previously, this same act allowed the local municipalities to exclude the public from one or other of their sessions, but this stipulation was declared unconstitutional according to the decision of the Constitutional Court No. 32/1992. AB.
All of this enables the local people to participate in the drafting process of any important local municipality orders.
The Constitution does not directly address the right of the public to petition for a referendum. Under Art. 30/A (1) (g), the president can forward a motion in favor of a referendum. Act XVII of 1990 on Referendum and Public Initiative governs the right of the public to call for a referendum on laws passed by parliament. If 100,000 signatures appear on a petition for referendum for a specific law, the act will be subject to the referendum process. According to this law, the government, at least 50 Members of Parliament (MPs) or 50,000 citizens can also initiate a national level referendum. The referendum is announced by parliament. At local level, a quarter of the representatives, any municipal committee, the board of any local NGO, or a certain percentage between 10 and 25 of the local citizens and the municipal council respectively can initiate a referendum. A local referendum cannot deal with issues expanding its scope, only in cases where an issue has local consequences.
Until now there have been no country level referendums in environmental cases yet, but there have been some local level cases.
The Constitutional Court can be addressed by any person, state or non-governmental body. The Constitution provides members of the public the right to challenge the constitutionality of any newly enacted or existing law (Art. 32/A; Act XXXII of 1989) and persons may have the right to initiate proceedings before the Court. The Court has the jurisdiction to decide in cases where the fundamental constitutional right of a person is violated by the act or omission of another.
The Constitutional Court plays an important role in environmental protection, and sets precedents - recently the Constitutional Court declared that neither new legal developments, nor a new interpretation of an already existing law, could legally result in decreased levels of protection of the environment. This represents an important constitutional principle, which ensures that future legislation cannot bend the environmental rules in favor of other considerations, such as economic interests.
Although there is a two year old regulation related to the legal institution of the Ombudsman ( in Hungarian terminology: the parliamentary commissioner of human rights), the Hungarian Ombudsman (who is actually a woman) does not have any specific power in environmental matters. During the drafting process of the new Hungarian Environmental Code, the idea of a separate Environmental Ombudsman emerged but was not accepted.
Environmentalists often unsuccessfully try to use their constitutional rights directly, without having a definite individual environmental legal case, yet constitutional rights are declarations which have to be followed and consequently, in the Hungarian legal system, one must not solely refer to a constitutional right when initiating a legal case, because it is not sufficient for the authorities to handle the case.
Concerning developments under way, there is a very early drafting process started in the professional circles of Ministry of Justice, but directions and definite contents of the future amendment of the Constitution are not public yet, so it is premature to deal with this issue.
It is the precondition of all legal channels of public participation that an individual or group of individuals, or environmental NGOs, must have standing. It is especially important to know how standing is defined in the procedures of several branches of law in order that citizen groups can become involved in cases which are in connection with the environment of the locale where they work.
Although the new Hungarian Environmental Code clearly declares that all environmental NGOs in their respective territories and in the circles of their interest, as defined in their by-laws, have standing in the administrative law cases, there have been cases where the Hungarian authorities have hesitated when accepting NGOs right to standing in their administrative law cases, especially when their opinion was inconvenient.
In recent legal practice, where the administrative law standing of the NGOs was denied, public advocacy lawyers in Hungary (EMLA) first of all referred to the notion of the client as it is written in Art. 3 Section (4) Act IV of 1957 on the General Rules of Administrative Process. According to this, the authority has to accept the standing of the client once it is considered an organization with party rights, but there is no difference between state or private organization in the text itself, or in the official explanation of the Code.
Referring to the freedom of association, it is stated that it is a clear infringement of this right once the offices overlook the legal aims of an association and do not allow it to operate according to these aims. The association can give press conferences, write pamphlets and demonstrate on the street, but cannot defend its legal interests before the authorities.
The problem of standing for environmental NGOs before the civil court has not been solved. There is no possibility to litigate against a polluter if there is not a direct material legal interest on the side of the plaintiff, i.e. some real material harm, damage or disturbance or the danger of such.
As far as the status of environmental NGOs is concerned, some authorities deny it, some accept, and others hesitate. Often, when an authority agrees with the NGO, it tends to accept the NGOs standing, but in other cases, the authorities prefer to use the arguments against standing as an excuse to avoid an issue or to avoid making a statement on their viewpoint.
Major developments in this field can be expected when the court practice is formulated regarding the new Hungarian Environmental Code. This Article contains some vague sentences about the rights of environmental NGOs, to protest against environmental pollution, endangerment or damages or to start litigation, without mentioning that this litigation is a civil, criminal or other kind of litigation. Since the regulation is still very fresh, solid court practice can only be seen after several years.
Defense of the citizen, when he or she is involved in the legal process, where the other party represents an overwhelmingly stronger force or is the State itself, is an underdeveloped issue in Hungarian law, although there are some new regulations related to witness protection in criminal law.
According to Art. 3 (4) of the General Rules of Administrative Proceedings, a party to a given administrative action is a person whose rights or legal interests are affected by the case. Any organization whose sphere of activity is affected by the case may thereby be a party and have the rights of a party. If an administrative authority refuses to admit a party to a case, the party may first ask the deciding authority to reconsider the decision (Art. 61) then may appeal to a higher administrative authority (Art. 62). If unsatisfied, review by a court of law maybe sought. However, there is no automatic stay of the subject proceedings while the review process proceeds.
Administrative decisions are made by the Regional Environmental Inspectorates (REI) and are appealable at the Chief Environmental Inspectorate (CEI). Citizens do have the right to urge action by the REIs or to complain about their decisions. The Director of the REI is obliged to answer complaints within 30 days, after which the citizen can complain to the CEI. If no satisfaction is forthcoming, the citizen can write a letter to the Minister of Environment. According to Ministry officials, this process is used frequently, but rarely results in any real change. The Governmental Decree No. 26/1991 provides that citizens or municipalities may bring a suit against administrative decisions.
Citizens and NGOs can make use of this right if they can prove an interest. Practice shows that several NGOs have done so. Especially Reflex, an NGO from Gyôr, in the Western part of Hungary has developed highly sophisticated expertise in using the administrative procedure and making impact on the environmental decisionmaking. However, since this process is quite complicated, legal expertise and capability need to be injected at the proper time.
According to the law, all information about personal status (that is, personal means connected with the personality and not with the purse), as well as state and service secrets are strictly protected. It also lists the most important areas of state activity where accessibility to the information can be restricted (Art. 19, Section (3)). These include: national defense, state financial and hard currency interests, foreign affairs and cases before international organizations or internal courts.
The Act stipulates that data concerning the activities of state and local governments should be open to the public, with the above exceptions. Moreover, Section 20 of the Act requires the government agency to deliver requested data within 15 days, or to notify, within eight days, those who request that the data is secret. Under Section 21, citizens can appeal such a refusal in court. Section 23 also calls for the appointment of a Data Protection Ombudsman to facilitate public appeals against non-compliant agencies.
Any information from the above mentioned can be subject to an active or passive information dissemination obligation. The active obligation (which is in general overlooked in practice) in principle calls for the authorities to take initiatives in the dissemination of the information, handled by them, especially concerning the data on structural frames, proceedings and results. The passive obligation arises when there is a private person or organization announcing the need to get information on any subject handled by the given authority, except for information not falling into the above mentioned categories of exception.
The Act in fact protects business secrets, allowing the company involved to decide what data is qualified. Since the Act does not give any specific definition or interpretation about what can be considered commercial and industrial secrets, patent law and know how. Business type secrets are not protected by administrative law. They are protected only by civil law which has a totally different approach. Hungarian Civil Code says: "Those who are in possession of a personal or business secret, who reveals them without entitlement infringes upon the rights of the personality" (Article 81). In consequence they are faced with civil law sanctions such as giving remedies, declaration of the infringement, paying damages and even fines The possession itself is not wrongdoing according to the civil law and neither the dissemination or publication or any other type of airing of secrets unlawful if there is an honest and proper reason for doing it. Discovering disturbing and environmentally harmful industrial operations should take precedence over the private interests.
Although the above Hungarian "Freedom of the Information Act" as we might call it, embraces all the general rules of this topic, there are some other regulations relevant to access to information. The General Rules of Administrative Law Procedure, as mentioned above, gives rights to the parties and to other interested persons to be informed about the files in a given case and to make notes or copies. There is a special regulation about the State Health Care Network, the Act XI. of 1991 which especially underlines the openness of the data about environmental pollution and the epidemic status. If the situation is serious in any of those issues, the State Public Health Service has to inform the concerned communities (active obligation).
Finally, there is a brief, hidden rule in the Act I. of 1968 about Petty Offenses, which allows the authority to make public the information about any petty offense if it is believed that publicity results in an elevated educational and deterrent effect. This legal remedy has not yet been used for environmental purposes, but it could be a powerful tool against those businesses who tend to neglect the interests of the environment and the community in favor of their own economic interests.
Concerning the practices of the Hungarian access to information regulations it can be concluded that Hungarian authorities have not realized yet the general message of these regulations, and in everyday practice they are reluctant to use them. First of all, regarding the active part of the information service: one can hardly find a state authority that regularly publishes the important information regarding its work and general structure. And there are some cases in which authorities directly or indirectly refuse to make the information available even when an environmental NGO forwards a request. The information often can be accessed more easily by personal contact than by legal pursuit. Nevertheless, environmental NGOs which regularly deal with legal issues should be persistent enough and aware enough of the legal possibilities to use and enforce the freedom of information regulations. In one case, for example, the Air Action Group wanted to prepare an environmental study about the plans of the M0 Highway, a circle highway around Budapest. The Public Traffic Authority refused to give the details of the plan, stating in its letter that before the actual decision and before the selection of alternatives, plans cannot be made public. The NGO, looking for help turned to the environmental legal consultation service of the public advocacy center, Environmental Law and Management Association (EMLA). EMLA wrote a letter in favor of the NGO, and pointed out that the argument of the authority was faulty and outlined all the legal ways it planned to fight the refusal. The authority replied immediately and sent the requested information. This and similar cases are promising for the future developments in the field of access to information in Hungary.
Now, after several years, EIA regulations have recently been elevated to the level of law and have been incorporated into the newly adopted Environmental Code. One of the most outstanding merits of it is that the impact assessment now represents a process rather than an individual official motion. More or less regular inspections of the largest industrial operations can ensure a more disciplined compliance from the operators.
The new law retains the former two tiered EIA process including a preliminary assessment followed by a detailed study. In the first "more economic" phase there is no special public participation foreseen, it is only required in the second stage. Yet, the government may issue an environmental permit after this first stage. In this phase only the proponent and the authority is involved. In the second phase, the so called detailed EIA process contains the requirement of a public hearing, to which affected parties should be invited, including the inhabitants of the affected area as well as the local government. There is a requirement that the draft environmental impact study should be accessible 30 days in advance of the hearing and that notification procedures should include information as to where the study is available. A short, easy-to-understand summary of the main statements should be attached to the study.
There is time and possibility for the public to be informed and prepared for the process of decisionmaking but the language of the law requiring assessment of public opinion is troublesomely vague concerning how the public comments should be considered. The provision requests that the Environmental Inspectorate before making its decision, should examine the merits of opinions important from the viewpoint of the environmental effects, but there is no guidance or practice as to what is "important" nor as to how the "merits" of the public comments are to be examined. This vague language might give way to an unequal and inconsistent application of the law. The final decision can be appealed under normal administrative procedure. The new Environmental Code includes some public participation provisions aside from EIA procedure- among others: a general statement of principles including public participation, an affirmative obligation of the government to encourage active participation of the public through guaranteeing access to environmental information, and provision for methods of citizen prevention and cessation of environmental damages.
In fact, the new Hungarian Environmental Code does not represent a meaningful development in this regard, because it does not change the previous EIA system. On the other hand, because the Code is only a so called framework regulation, it can be expected that the upcoming executive type regulation will contain some new, more precise requirements which make for easier the public participation in EIA processes. The basic problem which needs to be solved is this: the first phase of the Hungarian EIA process does not contain any definite possibilities for public participation. Normally the aim of the first preparation phase of EIA process is to prepare the investor and the public for the main process of the environmental evaluation of the planned enterprise. For this reason, the majority of the so called "progressive" regulations contain strong public participation language from the outset. Hopefully the detailed regulations of the Hungarian EIA process will bring these regulations closer to generalized solutions.
Concerning the practice of public participation in EIA process, there are some shortcomings as well. A lot depends on how the concerned municipality in charge of organizing the public hearing, publicizes this event and whether or not the most effective ways of communication are used during the notification. This can be one of the reasons, why public hearings are not always successful. The other pitfall is that the public moves only when its interests are obviously at stake. In the average, "technical" cases the citizens do not show deep interest in public hearings. And citizens, and many NGOs do understand what EIA procedure means; when and in what form they might have a proper involvement or how to behave in a public hearing.
The legal network of protection is almost complete, but one piece is missing: soil protection. The rationale behind this may be that, underground water protection is enough to protect the soil environment in this respect. This is far from being true. The best example is the infamous Metallochemia case in the XXII district of Budapest. which has involved hundreds of tons of lead contamination. Since the soil and the base of the lead dust mountains react to each other in such a way that there is not much chance of the lead reaching into the ground water, there is practically no legal basis on which an interested party could challenge the contamination. On the other hand, the lead is uncovered, and the wind carries the dust to the neighboring areas. There is still no recourse under air protection regulations. The strongest tool of the Environmental Inspectorate is to shut down the factory. This actually happened several years ago in the Metallochemia case.
Except for the lack of regulation in soil contamination, the system of environmental permitting is working quite well. Studying the practice of the Central Danube Valley Environmental Inspectorate (CDVEI), it was learnt that the citizens are alert in the pollution cases and very frequently notify the inspectorate. This triggers the official process.Nature Protection is regulated by the Presidium Order No. 4. of 1982. and the executive regulation, Governmental Decree No. 8/1981. (III.15.) This latter decree includes significant possibilities for public participation because it requires a concrete procedure with public involvement in establishing nature protection areas. Nature protection in Hungary represents the aristocracy of environmentalism. Many NGOs focus on nature conservation and preservation and nature protection authorities have been fighting, so far with success against the privatization of the forests and the slow, gradual process trying to eliminate the local protection areas. In the former administrative system there were three levels of nature protection: local, county and national levels. According to the newly assigned rights of the local municipalities, the county level administration has been merged with the local level. Areas protected on county level now belong to authority of the local municipalities. However, these - struggling with everyday financial difficulties - tend to withdraw the protection of any pristine areas once there is an economically lucrative offer for use. Unfortunately the reversal process of changing the status of a protected area is not regulated at all, though it is more than obvious that for the latter at least the same procedural rules should be mandatory, with built-in checks and balances through the participation of the professional natural protection authorities and the concerned local people. Unfortunately the practice infringes this seemingly unambiguous conclusion and allows the municipalities to bring a simple, one motion decision about the elimination of the protection of their certain lands.The Decree of the Minister of Building and City Development No. 12/1986. (XII. 30.) ÉVM. on the building permit and usage permit processes does not contain any direct provisions. Yet, environmental organizations in the practice frequently use those provisions in this decree which allows the neighbors to intervene in the permit process. A larger development may reach dozens of fields. Some of the owners of these fields may be members of the interested environmental NGO or at least can be convinced to cooperate in a given case. A significant public participation can take place through the EIA process for environmental permitting. The mentioned Decree of the Minister of Building and City Development does contain a provision which establishes a solid bridge between the two types of permitting processes. Namely Article 12 Section (1) point g./ prescribes that an environmental permit (i.e. the final result of the EIA process) is a mandatory annex to the application for a building permit. The only problem is that there are more than a dozen additional regulations for other types of investments requiring permitting such as mining, transport, water management, atomic energy constructions and others which do not contain the same provisions as the basic building permit regulation. Once the building permit overlooks the EIA process, public participation loses its practical weight since it cannot really influence the faith of the investment. In practice, it results in a growing neglect of the legally prescribed EIA process from the side of investors. It is very necessary to revise systematically all those special permitting process regulations which now overlook the EIA process. Hopefully the modification wave triggered by the new environmental code will include this.
Concerning the regulation on territorial planning, the Hungarian law system has serious shortcomings which might even be seen as unconstitutional. There is no law level regulation - except a few general words in Act III. of 1964 on Building and its executional decree - just a ministerial order, which does not count as a law level regulation according to the Act XI of 1987 on the Legislation. Otherwise this "too low level" regulation does not contain the details of the public participation possibility which is prescribed in the Building Act. This Act stipulates that before the municipality council finalizes a territorial planning resolution, the mayor has to organize a public hearing on the issue. In practice the mayors very frequently forget about this responsibility or allow the investor to organize the hearing. One can imagine, that this kind of hearing is not a forum for the concerned residents to express their opinions, but rather an advertisement occasion for the investor. Sometimes we even find some manipulations within the formalities of organizing the hearing such as insufficient publicity or invitation of targeted and perhaps bribed groups meeting in a relatively small room, etc. A draft is being prepared now by the Ministry of Environment and Regional Development on this issue in harmony with the New Environmental Code and its principles. Details are not public yet, but a more detailed regulation of the public participation features would help.
Hungary has not yet a comprehensive regulation on the issue of land use. The Decree of the Minister of Building and City Development No. 1/1968. (I.11.) ÉVM. refers to some public lands, not to all lands. This old regulation has no public participation provisions. Local governments have authority over land use permitting and construction permitting. Although there is no requirement other than that contained in the Local Self-Government Law, regarding public participation in the local permitting decisions, grassroots political pressure may result in locals using their permitting authority to influence development.
In practice, the administrative court processes raise special problems since the cases themselves require special professional knowledge apart the general legal knowledge. This element brings together the members of the courts and the professionals sitting in the administrative offices. This usually results in a ÔÔprofessionally biased" court setting, which is sometimes difficult to influence by new innovative ideas. The new participants in the administrative law court cases, like EMLA, which professionally deal with these kinds of cases on the side of the clients can gradually change the old attitudes.The Civil Code provides a compensation for harms resulting from unusually dangerous activities including endangering the environment or causing damage to another (Civil Code, Act IV. 1959, Art. 345) Trespassing could be another possibility for remedies. According to an interesting rule in the Hungarian regulation of trespassing Article 190. Section (1) even entitles the possessor to avert a direct trespassing by his/her own physical force, but not by more force than necessary. In the Petty Offense Code, Act I. of 1968, and its executive Governmental Order there is a very broad list of environmental petty offenses or other offenses which may be used such in given cases. Although the fine which can be exposed to the perpetrators represent a very limited sum, it targets the proper persons, only and as such, can much more effectively influence the behavior of the management of a polluting company. More than a very large administrative law fine or a civil law damage claim against the company itself as a legal entity. Since 1978, Hungary has a description of two environmental crimes in its Criminal Code. Unfortunately there are few practical examples of real enforcement of Endangerment of Environment (Article 280.) or Endangerment of Nature (Article 281.). The main reason is that the sentencing of these crimes describes them as so called result crimes, i.e. they cannot be committed without a well described, definite environmental harm in a strong causal link with the activity of the perpetrator. This arrangement leads to the situation, that for instance, in air pollution one cannot imagine any environmental crimes no matter how serious and poisonous the pollution is. It is the same situation with water pollution if there is a large river or lake in question, since it is very difficult to determine who has caused exactly what result. When there are many perpetrators independent from one an other, the ancient principle of the presumption of innocence starts to operate, and no one of the perpetrators can be considered guilty.
There is a chance to influence the legislative process since sometimes the Parliamentary Committee on Environment organizes meetings on draft legislation or on strategic environmental policy issues to which representatives of major NGOs are invited. A few years ago a parliamentary hearing was held at the time of the drafting of the environmental code. NGOs, independent Hungarian and foreign experts gave their comments. The sessions of parliament and the Committee of Environment are open, but contrary to previous practices, if NGOs wish to participate they have to have a written invitation in advance, and the number of possible participants is limited. Nevertheless, the NGOs and their experts are often invited to participate in the work of ad hoc committees on different important policy issues, environmental conflicts or various site visits. Their comments are invited. NGOs often try to make an impact through lobbying and contacting MPs from different parties. The NGOs may be requested to forward their suggestions or work as independent experts. An interesting example - one NGO group prepared an alternative green budget and circulated it together with the official budget proposal. Citizen groups also frequently invite leading officials to their meetings, annual forum.
The Parliamentary Committee organizes open days once or twice a year when all NGOs including businesses are invited for a general exchange of information. These meetings, though regular, usually have no focused subject. Discussion and results may be wide-ranging.
Recently, an information center was established by Parliament for all public interest pressure groups in order to improve the flow and access to information. Through the center the suggestions and proposals of the NGO community may get the attention of MPs but mainly as individual, informal opinion and it would depend upon the goodwill of MPs whether or not they are taken under consideration.
At the level of central government relations are much more intensive and structured. Though there is no permanent forum for discussion, a few NGOs participate in the advisory council of the Minister of Environment, and there is a cooperative and rather intensive relationship with several departments of the MoE. Most of these contacts are again due to personal good relationship with some of the officials, and the impact made by the citizen groups is informal, still there are precedents in which a significant input is not only given by them but also accepted and used by the officials.
Two or three times a year the ministry organizes so called open days, where there are discussions on some hot topics with the representatives of the environmental NGOs. Unfortunately those representatives usually do not have a definite mandate from their organizations and sometimes they only represent their own individual viewpoint. The Hungarian NGO community now is planning to set up a structured NGO representation which would get a mandate from the NGO community and could be officially accepted by the environmental administration and Parliament as partner in the dialogue.
Both parliament and MoE give financial support to citizen groups. This is unique in the CEE region. Parliament distributes funding among all public interest groups and therefore environmental NGOs get only small part of the available resources. The MoE provides funding regularly from the National Environmental Fund and recently from fuel tax. From the latter the funds are not only given to the NGOs but also the right of decision is transferred to them. Their elected representatives can distribute this funding based on applications against criteria agreed in advance.
At local level, the local environmental NGOs usually find the way to approach governments in an informal though efficient way. Good examples can be found in the communities of Vác, Eger, Solymár - and in some quarters of Budapest such as the XI or XXII, where citizen groups are working closely with the municipalities to make a significant impact in the environmental field. In this relationship the legal and non-formal channels are sometimes both present since citizens are often invited to participate in official municipal committees or may even be elected as representatives at the local level.
Several years ago the Fans of City Biking (FCB) learnt that in the District III of Budapest, a big refreshment factory started to operate in the vicinity of a large block-flat area. It had a large turnover, actually the heavy trucks came and went all day and all night, through the densely populated area, causing unbearable noise. Additionally these large vehicles destroyed the small streets and parking places that were not meant for such heavy use. The bikers wanted to show that the trucks could have used other routes to get to the refreshment factory. They jammed the streets with cars, bikes and people, detouring much traffic including the big trucks. Though they had announced the demonstration to the police, a big legal argument started, which ended at the Supreme Court of Hungary. The Court decided in favor of the NGO, stating that FCB was right.
Another example is the campaign of Reflex Association in Gyôr against the use of metal refreshment cans with a slogan "smash it smooth" which sounds well in Hungarian ("Tapossa laposra"). They disseminated pamphlets, leaflets and even small envelopes with the slogan and used other sources of publicity too. The campaign was extended almost to the whole country, unfortunately the hoped for results were not attained. It is difficult to change consumption patterns in such a short time.
An accomplishment in the non-formal field is that the Hungarian environmental movement has grown much stronger. NGOs have made their voices heard in the most meaningful environmental problems of the country. They have shown remarkable expertise, capacity and organizational skills in some fields, first of all in environmental education and in some strategy areas. They have been successful in influencing the decisionmaking process in key areas such as drafting legislation, using economic instruments, etc.
In the non-formal field the major problem is the lack of interest of citizens in public participation and the decreasing support of the NGO actions in this area. Due to the former regime, there is a lack of the sense of ownership and a disinterest in public affairs which makes it difficult to mobilize public opinion. Sometimes the necessary expertise is also missing, NGOs and citizens cannot meaningfully participate without specific expert assistance in complicated public participation cases (hazardous waste siting, waste storage facilities for nuclear power plants, incinerators, etc.). The biggest obstacles are the lack of information and the lack of skills among the citizens bringing the problem to the fore.
Parliament and the government need to consider adoption and implementation of public participation procedures and guidelines at a high level in accordance with the internationally recognized principles and good practices in environmental decisionmaking.
Similarly, a law is needed governing the process of governmental rule making which includes definite public participation procedures and requires the government to consider and respond to public comments.
NGOs need to concentrate on the qualitative work in order to reach a better position in the dialogue with the decision makers and to elevate their popularity among the public. The way of development for them is further specialization and better networking. Their are many encouraging signs that show the capability of NGOs to work together and assist each other in training, fundraising; in legal and non-formal advice. This can also be the basis for learning and disseminating the capacity for using the legal tools that will doubtless become increasingly more important in the coming years.