The
Diet of Hungary () was a legislative institution in the
medieval kingdom of Hungary from the 1290s, and in its successor states,
Royal Hungary and the
Habsburg kingdom of Hungary throughout the
Early Modern period. The name of the legislative body was originally "Parlamentum" during the Middle Ages, the "Diet" expression gained mostly in the Early Modern period. It convened at regular intervals with interruptions during the period of 1527 to 1918, and again until 1946. In 1608, a
bicameral legislature was enacted as the Royal Hungarian Diet, dividing the main board and the lower board (the board of envoys). Members of the main board (the upper house) were the high nobles and high priests (archbishops and bishops). The lower board was attended by representatives of the common nobility, clergy and civil order: elected representatives of the noble county, delegates of the free royal cities and representatives of the lower Church representatives. Approximately 10% of the total voting age population could vote for the elected delegates of the lower board (5% county nobility, 5% residents of free royal cities). The election of the noble delegates (1 delegate from each county) took place in the county delegate elections, after a long, noisy, courtier campaign, at the county hall. Delegates received voting instructions from county assemblies. The parliament consisted of about 500 people in the 17th–18th centuries. The articles of the 1790 diet set out that the diet should meet at least once every 3 years, but, since the diet was called by the
Habsburg monarchy, this promise was not kept on several occasions thereafter. As a result of the
Austro-Hungarian Compromise, it was reconstituted in 1867. The Latin term
Natio Hungarica ("Hungarian nation") was used to designate the political elite which had participation in the diet, consisting of the
nobility, the Catholic clergy, and a few enfranchised burghers, regardless of language or ethnicity. Today's parliament is still called the
Országgyűlés, as in royal times, but is called the 'National Assembly' to distance itself from the historical royal diet. Under
communist rule, the National Assembly was defined as the "
supreme body of state power" (after 1972: "supreme body of state power and popular representation"). Per the principle of
unified power, it was the sole branch of government in Hungary, and all state organs were subordinated to it. Under the Constitution of 1949, initially drafted by the communists, it was vested with great lawmaking and oversight powers. In practice, as with most other communist legislatures, it did little more than ratify decisions already made by the Communist
Hungarian Socialist Workers Party and its Politburo. The Assembly only sat twice a year. The
Presidential Council exercised most of the Assembly's powers between sessions, but could not amend the Constitution. The Presidential Council could also issue edicts in lieu of law. On paper, these edicts had to be ratified by the Assembly at its next session to remain in effect, but such ratification was usually a formality. The liberal democratic character of the Hungarian parliament was reestablished with
the fall of the Iron Curtain and the
end of the communist dictatorship in 1989. The Assembly's constitutional designation as the highest organ of power was retained after the end of communism and removed only by the Fidesz-drafted
Fundamental Law of Hungary in 2012. == Historical composition of the National Assembly since 1990 ==