Freedom of arts as an independent fundamental right in the Hungarian legal system

The paper discusses the issue whether art and works of art created by artists can be assessed using legal means. The paper provides an overview of the different Hungarian constitutional provisions governing artistic freedom from 1949 to the present, and examines the possible components of freedom of arts as a fundamental right, within the confines of the Hungarian legal system. According to the author, the subjective side of the artistic freedom integrates into the fundamental right of freedom of expression, ie artistic expression is free, but it does not require a separate, specific protection under constitutional law. However, the specificities of artistic expression as factors influencing the scope of the freedom of expression might be taken into account, e.g. symbolic speech, the specificities of a genre or the time elapsed since publication). Hence, works of art and literary pieces are to be treated as specific, unique forms of opinions – they are presented as a form of freedom of expression but this does not go beyond the boundaries of freedom of expression as a fundamental right. At the same time, the regulation of art, irrespective of this, might be justified even in the Fundamental Law. Setting requirements for the state (the objective obligation of the state to safeguard the institutions of fundamental law) is a precondition for the birth and preservation of works of art, which constitutes the objective side of artistic freedom without any specific subject and denotes its specific constitutional content But, an appropriate level of protection for freedom of expression ensures that this recognition should not have any detrimental consequences for freedom of arts