The Role of E-Parliament in Hungary

Abstract

The supreme legislative power of the Republic of Hungary is the unicameral National Assembly, which has 386 members. The 1990 political changeover expedited the development of democratic institutions and substantially increased their importance. Besides the traditional media, electronic information has assumed an increasingly important role (European Commission, 1999). The change of paradigm in the management of information is made necessary by the recognition that knowledge supports politics. Parliamentary work is one of the main sources of this. Thus, Parliament and its standing committees function as systems acquiring and processing information. These systems have so far tried to produce information from largely unstructured data in the course of written and verbal communication. According to the new paradigm systematisation of the knowledge of the organisation and the environment will generate the knowledge base which will be suitable for upgrading the quality of political and professional processes (Hungarian Government, 2003). The work in Parliament, the utterances of politicians are in the forefront of public attention. Therefore the staff of the Office of the National Assembly should provide access to current and accurate information on a continuous basis. In the information age this is a serious challenge for Parliament. This is why it has become necessary to determine the demands that electronic Parliament (e-Parliament) has to meet, and to devise ways for their gradual and systematic satisfaction.