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Brawling in the House? One way to curb legislative violence (Includes interview)

The Constitutional Court ruled on March 18 that the removal by police of extremist Economic Freedom Fighters members during President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation address in 2015 was unconstitutional. Currently, according to Eyewitness News, Parliament is working on a set of rules to better regulate behaviour in parliament. However, as yet, no solutions to enforcing these rules have been found.

This is not a new problem. Parliaments and similar assemblies have experienced violence and unruly behaviour since they were first created. Perhaps the most famous such event is the assassination in the Roman Senate of Caius Julius Caesar Dictator in 44 BC.

Classical-style painting of the death of Julius Caesar by Vincenzo Camuccini

Classical-style painting of the death of Julius Caesar by Vincenzo Camuccini
Wikipedia Vincenzo Camuccini


Other, more recent, cases would include the shooting of five Croatian members of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia, in 1928.

Other cases of (non-lethal) violence have occurred more recently in parliaments from Britain to India and Nigeria to Bolivia. Punches have also been thrown in the US Congress as well as in State Legislatures in that country, and it is not uncommon to see South Koreans or Taiwanese MPs slug it out on the TV screens of the world.

One possible solution might be to create a dedicated parliamentary organisation aimed at maintaining order and security, and such an organisation exists in Hungary, as a member of a visiting delegation from that country to South Africa, the Commander of the Hungarian Parliamentary Guard, Brigadier General László Tóth, explained in an interview with Digital Journal. He went back in history to show how that guard was formed. He gave brief background points about the evolution of constitutional rule in the country:

Brigadier General Lázsló Tóth  Commander of the Parliamentary Guard  at the Hungarian Ranch in Mi...

Brigadier General Lázsló Tóth, Commander of the Parliamentary Guard, at the Hungarian Ranch in Midrand, South Africa.

”In the 1848 Laws, they laid down certain basic things. One of these essentials was that everybody’s vote is of equal weight, which at the time was considered strange: Parliemantary immunity. The word comes from the fact that often in the Counties the (County Assemblies) refused to let Members of Parliament go (to the Parliament in Budapest). Among other things, Lajos Kossuth (a leader of the 1948 Revolution) laid down that parliamentary sittings be public.
”There was a rule, that both houses (of parliament) had to draw up rules and the Speaker of the House had to adhere strictly to them.”
”And it was written there for the first time, literally, that the maintainance of quiet and of order, and in the interest of these and of keeping the listeners’ silence the Speaker, if necessary, could even deploy the National Guard.”
(Brigadier Tóth was referring here to conditions in 1848 and later, in the period of the Dual Monarchy, often wrongly called the ”Austro-Hungarian Empire” — which never existed as a legal entity — where the ”listeners” included MPs, members of the press and the public. The National Guard was a militia, upon which the later military of independent Hungary in 1848 was based.)

Therefore ad absurdum (to take it to extremes) the Speaker could have called in the National Guard to the parliament. There was no case of this happening but the legal right existed and in 1912 (Prime Minister) István Tisza invoked this rule to break down the ”technical obstacle” (an expression used to describe opposition attempts to prevent or slow down parliamentary debate) and called in the police of the capital city and had those shouting the loudest removed.At that time) when the police removed an MP, his case went before the Immunity Committee, and usually, he was sanctioned by being barred from parliamentary work. But, this did not mean he could not enter the parliament building, he could go anywhere, but only that he could not take his own seat. So he could not practice his right as an MP. Now, at one of the following sittings, and the daily removals (of rowdies) had occured, an Social Democrat MP, Gyula Kovács, who just happened to be under sanctions, who had been sitting in the press gallery and observing everything, rushed into the middle of the House and took three shots at István Tisza with a revolver – and failed to hit him once – and then shot himself in the head, but he got that wrong too because he survived.
(Interestingly, the man was acquitted of any charges, due to what we today would call “temporary insanity”.)
Tóth continued:

“In any case, this got to such a level , that the Speaker had to turn to the police, and despite this, they shot (at the Prime Minister) and this was when they decided they needed an independent guard. Since Montesquieu, the modern state’s corner stone is that the branches of government are separated, and it seemed that the Hungarian Parliament had nothing (the police belonging to the executive branch). And they brought into being the House of Representatives Guard, (Képviselőházi Őrség in Hungarian) and on December 28, 1912, the King (as constitutional head of state) Franz Joseph, ratified the law which created it. Until 1945, the House of Representatives Guard continued to carry out its work to everyone’s satisfaction. It didn’t matter which political persuasion was in power, everyone respected them.

The Soviet occupation put an end to any form of constitutional government and with it, the Guard unit. Tóth continued:

“When László Kövér became the Speaker, he decided there would be big changes. He said the separation of powers was not being practiced. The Speaker of the Parliament depends on the police, and the police are directed by the government through the minister of the interior.
“So: Who may enter Parliament? According to which rules may he enter Parliament, what can he do? These things were not decided by the speaker, but by the interior minister. Because the interior minister was in charge of the police and the police guarded the parliament.So the speaker said this is in no way right, because it’s not the government that has a parliament, but the parliament has a government. So, professionally, there needs to be direction, which we have, but otherwise, a totally independent organisation, answering only to the speaker of parliament, can protect the Hungarian parliament.

Brigadier General László Tóth in his dress uniform.

Brigadier General László Tóth in his dress uniform.


(This is the Parliamentary Guard or Országgyűlési Őrség).
“Now the only armed force in Hungary which does not fall under the government, but under parliament exists. Some have ceremonial duties, so they have elegant uniforms, some are out in the street, protecting the building, they have more comfortable uniforms, those protecting the speaker’s person are in civilian clothes, there are other plain-clothes members. We also have a fire brigade, the fire-protection of parliament is also our job.
He added that the unit took its oath on the Holy Crown of Saint Stephen a hundred years to the day that the 1912 House of Representatives Guard was gazetted.

(The crown of the Kingdom of Hungary was considered the fount of legitimacy of the Hungarian kings and as it was linked to more than one king who later became Catholic and Orthodox saints the crown became known as the Holy Crown. Although Hungary is now a republic, the Holy Crown remains an important symbol of national unity.)

So, back to rowdy Afro-Marxists (or Afro-Fascists?) in South Africa, Julius Caesar’s assassination and all the other legislative violence around the world, perhaps other parliamentary or congressional bodies might consider a parliamentary guard of some sort?

If nothing else, to check for revolvers!

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