Budapest court turns to top court over Kishantos land lease case

Budapest (MTI) – A Budapest court handling a lawsuit involving the lease of land used earlier as an organic farm to a private company has turned to the Constitutional Court over the matter, suspending the case until the top court completes a review of several laws governing land lease applications.

The lawsuit in question is the Rural Development Centre of Kishantos, an organic farm in central Hungary versus the National Land Management Fund (NFA). The centre wants the court to declare that the land lease applications opened by NFA in 2012 and the bidding process were unlawful.

In a ruling issued on Wednesday, the Municipal Court of Budapest requested that the Constitutional Court declare certain clauses of the national land fund law and the government decree regulating the use of lands managed by the fund unconstitutional. The Budapest court also appealed to the top court to declare that these clauses violate various international treaties and to annul them with retroactive effect.

The municipal court found that the clauses it referred to the top court were in breach of the principles of the rule of law and legal safety. It said the national land fund law did not prescribe any objective or transparent criteria regarding the evaluation of land lease applications.

The court also ruled that the clauses in question were unconstitutional because laws governing the acquisition and use of farmland should be two-thirds laws while the laws in question were not.