At the end of June, 2014, the Metropolitan Court of Budapest declared the resolution appointments of the most recent Budapest Bar Association elections void.
The original balloting, conducted on February 21, 2014, for a total of 129 positions, led to the re-election of President Laszlo Reti (Partner at Reti, Antall & Partners, working in cooperation with PwC), who has held the office since 2006. The group that filed the claim successfully challenging those results was led by lawyer Beatrix Bartfai (Partner at Sarhegyi & Partners).
Background
According to Peter Koves, Vice-President of the Budapest Bar Association and Partner at Lakatos, Koves & Partners, the group led by Bartfai proposed candidates at the previous elections in 2010, but at the time only with regards to positions primarily in the disciplinary committee. This time around, they “proposed mainly inexperienced candidates for all 129 positions” (ranging from the presidency, vice-president positions, to chairs of the various committees and the Budapest Bar representatives to the so-called “Full Board of the Hungarian Bar Association”) and “when 126 of their candidates were not elected they challenged in court the result of the election.”
When contacted, Bartfai explained that her group simply wasn’t as able to make itself heard in the past: “In 2010 the group now known as ‘Ugyvedi Osszefogas’ (‘Attorneys’ Alliance’) did not exist in its present form as a professional movement – it was not as organized as it is now and did not have as many members and supporters as it has today.” She explained that, “although our goals had ever since been the same, we could not stand up for the attorneys’ real interests those days as we did this year.”
With regards to the mission of the Attorneys’ Alliance, Bartfai commented, “our intention was to make a transparent, answerable 21st century Bar. – The current organization and operation of the Budapest Bar is obsolete, which even its own members try to keep as distant from themselves as possible. The way the Budapest Bar appears to its members is through the regular payment obligations and the threat of its disciplinary powers. We firmly believe that the Bar should be for its members and not the members for the Bar.”
Prior to the elections in February, according to Koves, an “unprecedented campaign” — including posters throughout the city — was carried out by Bartfai’s group. “What tram passengers had to do with the Budapest Bar elections is beyond me,” Koves stated. And the stakes were high in the election: “The Budapest Bar Association is by far the largest in Hungary — over 10 times bigger than the second largest one — and there is also a gentleman’s agreement between the different Bars that the President of the Hungarian Bar Association is nominated but the Budapest one.”
The result of the massive campaign was the highest turnout in the Bar’s history, with close to 2,500 lawyers (out of a total of approximately 5,500) attending the elections. Nonetheless, the challengers lost to the incumbent, who secured a two-third majority of the votes. The results were then contested in the Metropolitan Court of Budapest.
Bartfai explained the reasons for the challenge: “The regulations relating to the election process were explicitly and severely violated, which were mostly found in the award of the Metropolitan Court, as well. For instance, despite the regulations of the Bar, the votes were not counted continuously, those entitled to count the votes were not continuously present upon counting, but delegated such tasks to unauthorized persons having no due responsibility. Such violations of law might have been alarming even for lay persons, but legal professionals simply could not abandon them.”
The Ruling
The challenges presented to the courts focused on a number of aspects, including the fact that the election and vote counting Committees were not constituted in line with the Rules of the Bar and several conflicts of interest were raised in relation to the membership of the committees themselves. These were rejected by the court, but Koves explained that the court overturned the resolutions announcing the election results on two other “technical” bases:
First, according to Koves, “there could be an interpretation of the election rules according to which the counting of the ballots cannot be interrupted. However, with a maximum 15 members of the counting committee — a limitation imposed by the election rules as well — this is simply not feasible.” Koves explained that “according to the court itself, there were about 800,000 votes that had to be counted (around 2,500 votes on 129 positions, many of which had more than 2 — and even up to 50 — candidates competing for them). Because of this, the counting lasted 5 days but every precaution was taken at the closing of a counting day: ballots were sealed, stored, photo-recorded, and were found untouched the next day.”
Second, Koves explained, “in order to expedite the counting, each member of the vote counting committee was assisted by one admin person from the Bar, who kept a record of individual votes. The interpretation of the court on this was that vote counting was also done by non vote counting committee members, which breaks the election rules.”
According to Koves, the Metropolitan Court, in its ruling, stated that the election process was carried out properly and that the results themselves cannot be contested, however, because of the two technical rules being breached, the 129 resolutions of appointment following the elections were declared void. Koves explained that “the Judge admitted that the specific rules were not critical but because he had to respect the autonomy and self-governing of the Bar Association, there is limited scope for a court to step in and prioritize rules, making the decision unavoidable.”
What’s Next
The decision will be appealed in a higher court. Until then it is “business as usual” for the Budapest Bar, according to Koves, who said that one of the main arguments for the incumbent group will be that, “even from the previous court ruling, it was clear that the votes outcome itself was not affected by the breaches, meaning there is no reason for rendering the election void.”
With regards to the appeal, Barfai’s commented, “should the appellate court duly base its ruling on the relevant laws and regulations, it cannot resolve otherwise than confirm the Metropolitan Court’s findings on the violations of law perpetrated during Budapest Bar 2014 elections.”
On the other hand, while the Bar Vice-President is optimistic about the appeal outcome, he believes that even should the appeal fail, all that would happen would be a re-counting of the votes which, according he believes, would lead to the “exact same results.” Bartfai, however, believes that ,“as the court annulled the Bar resolutions on the elections, the elections should definitely be repeated.“