"Property shall entail social responsibility"

Letters from Turkey

My dear Aunt,

the Fundamental Law does reflect a philosophy or at least a viewpoint, a way of thinking. Not necessarily coherently, but it does. Again, I have no problem with that, it is simply not the kind of text I would read every night before going to bed.

You write I misinterpreted Article O: „Every person shall be responsible for his or herself, and shall be obliged to contribute to the performance of state and community tasks to the best of his or her abilities and potential.”

See, this is in line with article XII obliging you to contribute:

Article XII

(1) ... Every person shall be obliged to contribute to the community’s

enrichment with his or her work to the best of his or her abilities and potential.

This is not a mistake. This is philosophy. So what if you don contribute? What if you do not want to contribute with your work for the enrichment? You do not want, because you happen to be selfish, or autistic, or simply dislike the community. It does not matter a bit, you shall be obliged to work for the community by the Fundamental Law carved in concrete as only a 2/3s majority can change it.

And here is a weird one, Article XIII which obliges not only the persons, but the property itself (could be poor translation, how would I know).

Article XIII

(1) .... Property shall entail social responsibility.

So what if my property does not entail? Will it be confiscated (just kidding). Again, I have not read the Law and probably will never read it.

I just picked some sentences at random. Basically, I can classify the text into two categories: poetic text without concrete meaning, or factual statement on something which could be regulated by a simple law.

Here is a poetic one: “In order to create and maintain peace and security, and to achieve the sustainable development of humanity, Hungary shall strive for cooperation with every nation and

country of the world.” Why? Why should Hungary strive for cooperation with North Korea?

And here is an example for the other kind: “With the exception of the President of the Curia, no judge may serve who is older than the general retirement age.” So what if 120 years from today there would be a shortage of judges? Hungary simply running out of them? You will not be able to ask a 65 year old judge to stay in office for another 5 years unless you change the Fundamental Law. True? Not quite. You can change the definition of “serving”.

The same happened to the definition of flat rate taxation. Hungarians pay 16% flat rate tax, which for many means more than 16%, because strangely they do not pay taxes after their income, but after their income + certain percent of their income. So that 16% carved in a cardinal law becomes 20-30 or whatever percent. Prof. Fukuyama is right, not institutions but good practice guaranty democracy. But again I would add, until unwritten conventions evolve the laws should be scrutinised, and compliance with the law should be checked. Why don't you sue your government for taking more that 16% of your income?

I really have to go now, love.