Despite Minister for Public Administration Octav Cosmanca's explicit request to cease action, the Alba/Fehér County branch of the ruling Social-Democratic Party (PSD)—led by County Prefect Ioan Rus—continues to hinder restitution of the “Batthyáneum” library to the Roman Catholic Church [see report of November 6]. The local PSD has attacked the latest court decision at the appellate level. As the Court of Appeals will be on recess during the holidays, the next hearing is likely to be scheduled only in 2003. The building and its 70,000 priceless book collection was illegally confiscated from the Roman Catholic Church during communism and restored, on paper, to the rightful owner by Government Decree 13/1998. [Krónika (Cluj/Kolozsvár), November 21 and 27, 2002]

A hearing in the Agache vs. Reiner case to be heard today was rescheduled by the Targu Secuiesc/Kézdivásárhely Court to December 20 as the defendants—including Antal Reiner—did not attend. The ethnic Hungarian Reiner is currently serving his term in the Miercurea Ciuc/Csíkszereda prison, as the last political prisoner convicted for participation in revolutionary acts related to the 1989 overthrow of communism. The plaintiff, Aurel Dionisie Agache, has sued for 70,000,000 ROL ($2,000) compensation from each of the five ethnic Hungarians convicted for the death if his father, Aurel Agache, during a mob lynching on December 22, 1989. Since Reiner is unable to pay the amount, he has been constrained to put up for auction his sole asset, a family house in the village of Estelnic/Esztelnek, which he owns with his wife and six other relatives. A total of six ethnic Hungarians were singled out for the lynching of the local representative of dictatorial rule, Aurel Agache, a particularly brutal police major who, on December 22, 1989, armed with his service revolver, tried to prevent the mob from entering the local Communist Party headquarters in the town. The defendants were sentenced to several years in 1999, four of them in absentia, while Reiner and Dezső Héjja (who was granted a presidential pardon this March) were imprisoned. [Krónika (Cluj/Kolozsvár), November 26, 2002]

The Supreme Court ruled for the Greek Catholic Church in a trial on the possession of a church in Ocna-Mures/Marosújvár. The building, which was confiscated from the Greek Catholic Church in 1948 upon banning of the denomination, was restituted to its rightful owner after the 1989 overthrow of communism. However, on the night of March 15, 2002 leaders and members of the local Orthodox Church occupied the church by force on the pretext that their congregation is more numerous in the town and therefore has greater need for the building. Calin Zamfirescu, legal representative of the Orthodox Church, announced that he will file an appeal against the decision with the Prosecutor General. [Krónika (Cluj/Kolozsvár), November 22, 2002]

The Bacau/Bákó County School Board withdrew its action against the Szeret-Klézse Foundation, a Csángó Hungarian organization, at the Bacau County Court. The School Board initially filed suit to ban the Foundation in December 2001 for launching Hungarian-language instruction for Csángó children. After its motion was rejected, the School Board filed an appeal against the court decision, but subsequently discontinued its action on the condition that it would not be obliged to pay 14,000,000 ROL ($420) in legal costs. Although limited language instruction commenced by this academic year in two Csángó settlements—Pustina/Pusztina and Cleja/Klézse—legitimate needs of the Csángó Hungarian population for native-language education still remain unfulfilled in nearly 50 other villages. [Szabadság (Cluj/Kolozsvár), November 15, 2002]

At a press conference, President of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (DAHR) Béla Markó denounced recent anti-Hungarian incidents that took place at various sporting events in Bucharest. A major incident happened on November 9 when two members of the Miercurea-Ciuc/Csíkszereda Sport Club were severely beaten during an ice-hockey game between their club and the Dinamo Bucharest hockey team. Szabolcs Szőcs and Konstantin Bucenko were watching the game from outside the field when unidentified Dinamo fans brutally attacked them. According to the General Secretary of the Romanian Ice-Hockey Federation, Eduard Pana, several nearby policemen witnessed the beating but did not intervene. [Krónika (Cluj/Kolozsvár), November 12 and 14, 2002]

The Hungarian Reformed Church Bishopric of Királyhágómellék was finally able to partially occupy the onetime Lorántffy Zsuzsanna High School in Oradea/Nagyvárad, illegally confiscated by the communist regime and recently restituted by Minister for Public Administration Octav Cosmanca. Although the prior occupant, the Romanian-language Andrei Saguna High School, has now emptied 13 classrooms, it continues to use several other classrooms and other school facilities. According to an agreement signed this summer between the Church and the City Council, the rightful owner will regain full use of the premises by September 2003. [Krónika (Cluj/Kolozsvár), November 14, 2002]

The only building restituted to the Roman Catholic Bishopric of Satu Mare/Szatmárnémeti since 1989 is in an uninhabitable condition, reported the Hungarian-language daily Romániai Magyar Szó. Once a Church boarding school, the building in Carei/Nagykároly was illegally confiscated under communism and restored by Government Decree No. 83/1999, but its poor condition prevents the Church from actually taking possession of the building. An other compelling issue is the situation of a boarding school building in Satu Mare. Although restituted on paper by the same government decree, the church is unable to occupy it as the current inhabitant, the Unio Vocational High School, refuses to move out before 2009, a period much longer than the one stipulated by the law. The Bishopric claims back more than 100 buildings in Satu Mare and Maramures/Máramaros Counties. [Romániai Magyar Szó (Bucharest), November 13, 2002]

The Mayor of Satu Mare/Szatmárnémeti, Horea Anderco, continues to defy the Law on Public Administration by refusing to display bilingual Romanian-Hungarian signs on the entrance to his office building, as well as other city institutions. Passed six months ago, the law mandates native-language use in official contacts in those settlements where a given minority's population exceeds 20 percent. In an interview with the Hungarian-language daily Romániai Magyar Szó, the Mayor avoided indicating when he plans to comply with the law's provisions. According to the 2002 national census, the Hungarian minority in Satu Mare numbers 62,000 or 38 percent of the population. [Romániai Magyar Szó (Bucharest), November 11-12, 2002]

The Alba Iulia/Gyulafehérvár Court dismissed the appeal brought by the ruling Social-Democratic Party (PSD) against restitution of the "Batthyáneum" library building to the Roman Catholic Church. The building had been illegally confiscated during communism and restored on paper to the rightful owner by Government Decree 13/1998. After the Constitutional Court rejected an appeal against the decree by the Alba/Fehér County branch of the PSD, the governing party initiated action at the local level. According to the Hungarian-language daily Krónika, the PSD plans to continue with its attack and counter the latest court decision at the appellate level. Two years of legal action has prevented the Church from regaining use of its property and—more importantly—ownership of the70,000 volume priceless book collection, which the state continues to possess. [Krónika (Cluj/Kolozsvár), November 6, 2002]

The topic of property restitution was extensively examined at the 14^th EU-Romania Joint Parliamentary Committee held in Bucharest on negotiations regarding Romania's EU-accession. Although a deadline of 2007 for the de facto completion of the restitution process was deleted from the closing document at the behest of the Romanian delegation, in Points 27-30 the Committee did declare that a deadline should be established for the completion of the process, encouraging the government to implement the necessary legal framework and speed up the procedures. The Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (DAHR) was represented in the Committee by Deputies Júlia Pataki and Zsolt Szilágyi. [Declaration and Recommendations adopted on the 14th meeting by the EU-Romania Joint Parliamentary Committee, November 5, 2002 and Szabadság (Cluj/Kolozsvár), November 6, 2002]