Speaker: Those implementing the law also have responsibility for enforcing it
House Speaker László Kövér said those implementing the law also have a responsibility in ensuring that 'the power is with the law, and the law is not with the power.'
Kövér told a conference of the Nadal Network, the network of public prosecutors of the European Union, in Budapest on Thursday that by prosecuting crime, upholding public order and preserving individual and community rights, prosecutors were contributing to preserving 'the European way of life and ultimately freedom'.
The public prosecutor's office is also a matter of state sovereignty. 'It would spell the end of public powers if supra-national organisations or global economic entities withdrew our right to prosecute crime, and there are attempts to do that from both directions,' he said.
One of the key issues in the Western world and Europe in the coming decades will be whether nation states, supra-national entities and private economic powers could strike a balance, Kövér said. Such a balance was the only way for the Western world to tackle societal, economic, environmental and technological challenges, he said.
Hungary, Kövér said, was one of the strongest states in Europe when it came to legal certainty, political stability and public safety, adding that prosecutors had the public's trust.
Outgoing Public Prosecutor Peter Polt, who also holds the rotating presidency of the Nadal Network, said that prosecutors must draw from traditions as well as look to the future and keep abreast of current affairs.
Robert Repassy, a state secretary of the justice ministry, said that the Public Prosecutor's Office in Hungary enjoyed a 'particular degree of independence, and no one can be cited before a court on orders from higher up. The Prosecutor's Office only brings charges on professional grounds and out of a conscientious conviction,' he said.
The government and the prosecutor's office work in partnership, with prosecutors taking part in the justice ministry's legislative work in penal law, he added.
The Nadal Network was established in 2009, 'with an aim of providing a platform for exchange of experiences between top-level prosecutors and their partner organisations.'This year's conference in Budapest hosted nearly 100 representatives of some 40 organisations and countries.
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