CEDAW/C/SR.36 English Page 2 The meeting was called to order at 10.25 a.m. CONSIDERATION OF REPORTS AND INFORMATION SUBMITTED BY STATES PARTIES UNDER ARTICLE 18 OF THE CONVENTION (continued) Initial report of Hungary (continued) (CEDAW/C/5/Add.3) l. Mr. SOMOGYI (Hungary), responding to questions ·raised with regard to his country's report, said that the general principle of the prohibition of all forms of discrimination and the principle of equality of rights of men and women were enshrined in the Constitution of the Hungarian People's Republic. Additional measures had, however, been taken in the form of Acts and rules of implementation to further safeguard women's effective enjoyment of equal rights by acknowledging that the biological differences between men and women must be addressed to ensure women's equal treatment with men. 2. Since the problems specific to women called for a comprehensive approach, individual Acts had been promulgated to protect women's civil, political, economic and cultural rights and violation of those rights constituted a crime or an offence, depending .on its seriousness. Women could appeal to the courts if their rights were violated and in recent years, a number of women had taken their grievances to the labour courts and legal action had been taken to end discrimination in employment in such areas as seniority and promotion. 3. Under the Constitution any citizen could be elected to political office. Thus, in theory and in practice, a woman could be elected President of the Republic. While no administrative steps had been taken to increase the number of women in political office since to do so would be a violation of the principle of equality, measures had been taken to increase their political participation and hence their chances of being elected. While he agreed with members of the Committee that statistics alone did not give a clear idea of women's role in a country's political life, he wished to point out that a third of the deputies to the National Assembly were women, one of the two deputy speakers of the Assembly was a woman and there were women in the Presidential Council, the Council of State and the Political Committee. Women accounted · for a third or more of the members of municipal, county and local councils and youth organizations and over half of all trade union officials. There were also women judges on the Supreme Court, the district courts and the Court of Appeals. 4. As a measure of women's substantive participation in politics, he pointed out that the National Council of Women, a non-governmental organization in which membership was voluntary, played a very important political and social role. It presented the Government with proposals and views relating to women's questions, dealt with economic questions and also with labour law in co-operation with the trade unions. Its initiatives were intended only as guidelines, however, and it was no substitute for Parliament. / ...