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16

POLITICAL

JPRS-EER-91-053 25 April 1991

fired the salvos in December 1956 would be held accountable or not. You replicd that they would not and that the situation could only be changed by a new law. The representative who asked the question acceptcd your argument, but the parliament as a whole voted against it because lack of punishment was not considered appropriate in this case. Don’t you regard the result of this vote as unjust?

[Gyorgyi] In my opinion, the question was asked to make the National Assembly aware of which laws effectively pertain to the criminal acts under discussion. When the representative urged the parliament to vote no, what he probably had in mind was to strike the issue from the agenda. I think his effort is understandable. At least it might be debated whether parliamentary question time is really the best way to explore an issue. In generał, is it proper for the parliament to express its views on tech-nica! matters?

[Sereg] In any event, the issue is now explored, and the current law is off the books. What’s next?

[Gyorgyi] The viewpoints of representatives the I am acquainted with differ substantially. There are those who would accept a symbolic reprimand and there are those who, despite the statute of limitations, would like a genuine criminal trial. Given my knowledge of foreign precedents, I can say that a political decision is necessary in this issue.

[Sereg] The reprcsentative who asked the question sug-gested that in connection with certain crimes the demo-cratic parliament should reestablish the statute of limitations. He defended his suggestion by saying that previously there was no way to hołd these people respon-sible. Is such an adjustment conceivable?

[Gyorgyi] From a technically legał standpoint, yes. In this context, however, legał, morał, and political consid-erations inevitably emerge. One is whether it is consti-tutionally possible to write a rule of law that is retroac-tively valid. What should also be investigated is whether extending the statute of limitations conflicts with inter-national agreements. But perhaps an even morę generał question is raised, namely, what is the attitude of a democratic power toward official acts of the previous regimc? In short, this is a complex issue.

[Sereg] What sort of foreign Solutions are there?

[Gyorgyi] Several constitutional States acknowledgc the concept of no statute of limitations. In addition to war crimes, for example, there is no statute of limitations for murder in Austria or Germany.

Rabbi Scores Compensation Law, ‘Fascist’ Book

91CH0505C Budapest MAGYAR H1RLAP in Hungarian 13 Mar 91 p 7

[Interview with Chief Rabbi Tamas Raj by NAP TV editor Ferenc Szekely and reporter Tamas Forro; from a television broadcast on 10 March 1991, place not given—first paragraph is MAGYAR HIRLAP introduc-tion]

[Text] A volumc of mcmoirs with a fascist tonę, which was published last week by the Miskolc organization of the Hungarian Democratic Forum, causcd much con-sternation. In NAP TV’s Sunday broadcast, editor Ferenc Szekely and reporter Tamas Forro asked Chief Rabbi Tamas Raj about this provocation, and about the Jewish aspects of the compensation law.

[Forro] I will begin with a quotation: “Whoever deals with the Jewish question must confront two charges: He will cither be regardcd an anti-Semite, or, what is even worsc: a philo-Semite." We, at NAP TV, are able to attest to the wisdom of this statement. Discounting dozens of mudslinging letters and telephone calls which are beyond description, in fact, one sober-minded viewer suggested that we stop probing this subject at all. We responded to this by saying that even though we would like to, we simply cannot do so. Unfortunately, these embers glow again and again. Two remarks were madę last week, on the basis of which our editor felt that Alliancc of Frcc Democrats (SZDSZ) representative, Chief Rabbi Tamas Raj, should be invited for an inter-view. One of these statements claimed that the SZDSZ announced that it would not to take part in the endless and unlimited debate on the indemnification bill unless the case of the Germans and of the Jewry were also discusscd. I request you to summarize why the present legislative proposal is not suited to remedy the affronts suffered by the Jewry.

[Raj] This is indeed a vcry scnsitive problem as far as the Jewry is concerned. By signing Section 27 of the Paris peace treaty, the then ruling Hungarian Government committcd itself not to transfer abandoned, so-called Jewish property to State ownership. This was confirmed by Law No. 25 of 1946, but cxactly the opposite took place. I would not have brought up this issue had it not been for the fact that the indemnification bill was placed on the agenda. As long as this is so, one cannot pass by this matter without comment, because some morał indemnification might have sufficed, it would have suffieed to make a gesture toward the Hungarian Jewry, some morał reparations which have been delayed for 40 years.

[Forro] When this issue was raised recently, several of our viewers claimed that the Hungarian Jewry was already indemnified in the 1960’s. I do not believc that people havc a elear understanding of the fact that indemnification came not from Hungary, from the Hungarian side, but from what was then the Fedcral Republic of Germany. Let us clarify this very accurately. Is there, or should there be some kind of new, different, Hungarian indemnification after the indemnification provided by Germany?

[Raj] The two can be separated from each other, of course, they must be separated. The then West German