Tibor Forró:
The First Electoral Law Based on Popular Representation
and its Application in Transylvania
The 19th century brought along the victory of legislation. The Hungarian legislative movement not only suggested the legislative reform, but - having in mind the laws in force - also brought it to an end. The constitutional reform in April 1848 brought to the united Hungary and Transylvania - as a form of state - the constitutional monarchy, in which the most important role was to be given to the parliament, and in which the Members of Parliament- for the first time - were to be elected freely by the city dwellers of that region.
The aim of this study is to present the reform of legislation, which gave way to the possibility of organizing free elections for the Budapest Parliament. The bases of this study are the narrations and the comments from the newspapers of the time, and also data from the archives regarding the preparations to and the process of the elections.
The first elections for the Budapest Parliament were held in June/July 1848 being organized on the bases of the legislation approved in Bratislava in April, and endorsed by the Court of Vienna. The liberal reformist movement, which suggested most of the laws from April 1848, enlarged the group of the electorate and that of the eligible. Constituents could be men who were at least 20 years old, and had properties of at least 300 forints in towns, or 1/4 socage property in villages. Franchise was given similarly to those craftsmen who worked with at least one apprentice, doctors, pharmacists, professors, priests, engineers, the intellectuals and the members of the Academy, regardless of their income.
At the drafting of the election law, the basis was the Belgian Constitution of 1831, but comparing it to the recent one, however liberal it was, it had its own shortcomings. The electoral law of 1848 also maintained the quota system, this way the population with little income or no income at all was excluded from the electoral registers. So were women, who were not allowed to participate in the June/July elections of 1848.
The electoral law of April 1848 stated in details the rights of the constituents and those of the eligible, the mode of organization and the process of parliamentary elections, and it meant a success in the way of the liberal reforms.
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