György Frunda (born July 22, 1951) is a Romanian jurist, politician, and lawyer. A member of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), he has been a member of the Romanian Senate for Mureș County since 1992, and was twice the UDMR's candidate for the office of Romanian President (in 1996 and 2000). Since 1992, Frunda has been a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), serving as president of the delegation since September 2004, and sitting with the European People's Party (EPP). A member of the Constituent Assembly in 1990–1992, he served on the commission drafting the Romanian Constitution.
On December 18, 2004, György Frunda was awarded the Hungarian Republic's Grand Cross of the Order of Merit by President Ferenc Mádl. Profile at the Romanian Senate site; retrieved July 6, 2007 He is married to a physician, and has fathered two daughters.
Biography
Early life and career He was born to ethnic Hungarian parents in Târgu Mureș, at the time in Mureș Region, Romanian People's Republic and is a member of the Reformed Church. His father Károly (known in Romanian as Carol) was a member of the resistance movement in opposition to the Communist regime: in 1956, he joined Ioan Faliboga and other young people in organizing clandestine committees that took inspiration from the Hungarian Revolution.Nicolae Balint, "Ungaria, 1956. Ecouri mureșene" ("Hungary, 1956. Mureș County Echoes"), in Magazin Istoric, November 2007, p.30 He was arrested in January 1958, and sentenced to 12 years in prison, but was set free by the general amnesty of 1964.
Frunda completed secondary studies at the Papiu Ilarian High School in the city in 1970, before enrolling at the University of Cluj (the present-day Babeș-Bolyai University), where he completed Law studies in 1974. In 1991–1992, he took postgraduate classes at the Salzburg Seminary and the Future of Europe classes in London. Between 1975 and 1995, Frunda worked as a barrister in his native city, operating a private law practice after 1996.
Following the 1989 Revolution, he joined the newly created UDMR and represented it in Chamber, serving as Secretary of the Committee for Drafting the Constitution and a member of the Chamber's Judicial Committee. He successfully ran on UDMR lists for the Senate in the 1992 election, serving as Vice President of its Judicial Committee and envoy to the PACE after 1993. He was appointed PACE Rapporteur for Lithuania in 1995, and became Vice President of the EEP's Parliamentary Group in 1996 (reelected in 2000 and 2004).
1996–2000 Running in the 1996 presidential election, which were eventually won by the Romanian Democratic Convention's Emil Constantinescu, Frunda was supported by the UDMR and received 761,411 votes (6.02% of the ballot).Political Transformation and the Electoral Process in Post-Communist Europe: Romania – Election Results , at the University of Essex; retrieved July 6, 2007 Commenting on the electoral debates of that year, analyst Tom Gallagher contrasted the rhetoric of incumbent President Ion Iliescu, who had become noted for his polemic views regarding the UDMR, with that of Frunda; contending that Iliescu was adopting a nationalist discourse which had been discarded by the majority of voters, Gallagher described Frunda as the UDMR's "most moderate and fluent parliamentarian, who improved the UDMR's image for many Romanian voters".Tom Gallagher, Theft of a Nation: Romania since Communism, C. Hurst & Co., London, 2005, , p.141
Confirmed a senator by the legislative election of the same period, he became Secretary of the Judicial Committee, also serving on the Committee for Monitoring and the Committee for Territorial Improvement and Local Authorities, as well as on the Committee for Human Rights (in 1999–2000) and, as Secretary, on the Judicial Committee for Appointments, Discipline, Immunities and Validations. Additionally, Frunda was Second Vice President of the PACE Judicial Committee.
Welcoming reconciliation with Hungary and measures leading to the Romania's European integration at a time when the UDMR joined Victor Ciorbea's Democratic Convention cabinet, Frunda argued that this process had made unlikely the resurfacing of violent incidents such as the March 1990 ethnic clashes in Târgu Mureș.Tom Gallagher, "Conflicts between East European States and Minorities in an Age of Democracy", in Farimah Daftary, Stefan Troebst, Radical Ethnic Movements in Contemporary Europe, Berghahn Books, Oxford, New York, 2003, , p.46, 47 In reference to the bilateral treaty signed by the two states, he stated: "from 1918 till now no leading figure in Romanian politics ever had the courage to say 'let us normalise relations with Hungary'".
During the early 1990s, György Frunda represented in court Pál Cseresznyés, an ethnic Hungarian accused of taking part in the Târgu Mureș clashes.Michael Shafir, "Romanian President Pardons Ethnic Hungarian" , at Radio Free Europe, OMRI Daily Digest, No. 246, Part I, December 30, 1996; retrieved July 6, 2007 Previously sentenced to 10 years in prison, Cseresznyés was the recipient of a pardon issued by President Constantinescu (December 1996). Speaking at the time, Frunda stressed that Romanian courts investigating the 1990 incidents had only sentenced ethnic Hungarians and Roma, and that Romanians had escaped punishment.
2000–2005 He was nominated the UDMR candidate for the presidential election of November 2000, after winning the nomination in an inner-party race with the more radical László Tőkés, the Union's Honorary Chairman., in Central European Review, September 2000; retrieved July 6, 2007Michael Shafir, "Hungarian Politician to Run in Romanian Presidential Elections" , at Radio Free Europe, RFE/RL Newsline, September 11, 2000; retrieved July 6, 2007 Frunda was endorsed by UDMR leader Béla Markó, who advised party members not to vote for a change in policy; in reaction, Tőkés stressed that his adversary winning was going to "set in stone the wrong political line for a long time" (additionally, he accused the UDMR's leadership of displaying "moral decay"). Frunda was eventually voted by 59 members of the UDMR Council (Tőkés received 34 votes).
During the electoral campaign, Frunda invited the gay rights organization Accept to take part in a meeting with youth in Bucharest, at a time when Article 200 of the Romanian Penal Code, which criminalized homosexual relations, was being brought under public scrutiny.Voichița Năchescu, "Hierarchies of Difference: National Identity, Gay and Lesbian Rights, and the Church in Postcommunist Romania", in Aleksandar Štulhofer, Theo Sandfort, Sexuality and Gender in Postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia, Haworth Press, New York, London, Oxford, 2004, , p.66 He received 696,989 votes (6.22%) in the national suffrage. During the second round of voting, when the Social Democratic Party's Iliescu faced the Greater Romania Party's Corneliu Vadim Tudor, he urged all political forces to isolate the latter, who is generally viewed as an extremist.Nick Thorpe, "Romania's Far-right Contender", at BBC News, November 28, 2000; retrieved July 6, 2007 Stating that he was "worried by the high score Mr. Vadim Tudor achieved", he declared that: "All political parties in Romania now have an obligation to isolate him and his party". Frunda was reelected a senator during the legislative election of the same month, serving as President of the Committee for Human Rights after 2002.
In January 2001, Frunda was among the 38 parliamentarians from 18 countries who signed an appeal to have Ilie Ilașcu, an ethnic Romanian Moldovan citizen who had been tried and sentenced to death by a Transnistrian court, to be retried in a Council of Europe member state.Michael Shafir, "Romanian Moves Motion on Ilașcu in Strasbourg" , at Radio Free Europe, RFE/RL Newsline, January 26, 2001; retrieved July 6, 2007 He noted that the matter was problematic, since Ilașcu was confirmed to have "shot and killed two people" by the Moldovan Supreme Court, but pointed out that the Transnistrian authorities were holding Ilașcu in "inhumane conditions" (a situation which he defined as "inadmissible"). Beginning 2003, Frunda sparked controversy when he called for the posthumous rehabilitation of Albert Wass, a Hungarian writer convicted in Romania for participation in the Holocaust. Eva Galambos, "Noi încercări de reabilitare a scriitorului Wass Albert, condamnat la moarte pentru crime de război" ("New Attempts at Rehabilitating Writer Wass Albert, Sentenced to Death for War Crimes") , in Gândul, February 24, 2006; retrieved January 11, 2011 William Totok, "Febra răsăriteană a reabilitărilor" ("The Eastern Fever of Rehabilitations"), in Observator Cultural, Nr. 184, September 2003; retrieved January 11, 2011 His statement to the press argued that Wass, unlike Romania's World War II dictator Ion Antonescu (who had been tried in a similar context), was the victim of procedural mistakes.
Frunda did not run in the presidential election of 2004, and gave his backing to Markó, who was the UDMR's nominee; at a time when political parties were considering announcing candidatures for the post of Romanian Premier, Frunda was the one designated by the UDMR.Michael Shafir, "Romanian Prime-Ministerial Hopefuls Clash in Televised Debate" , at Radio Free Europe, RFE/RL Newsline, October 22, 2004; retrieved July 6, 2007 During the televised debate hosted by TVR 1, in an unprecedented gesture, he summarized parts of the discussion in Hungarian.
Reelected a senator during the 2004 legislative election, he became President of the Senate Committee for Human Rights, Religions and Minorities, and, inside the Council of Europe, First Vice President of the Monitoring Committees, member of the Committee on Human Rights, member of the Subcommittee on Human Rights, and member of several other committees and subcommittees; additionally, Frunda was the council's Rapporteur for Nations, Minorities and Religion, and Rapporteur for the Judicial Committee on the "Concept of Nation"."The concept of "nation"", PACE Doc. 10762 , December 13, 2005, at the Council of Europe site; retrieved July 6, 2007
Monitoring in Latvia and Russia During October 2005, he visited Latvia as Monitor, with the goal of establishing "whether Latvia is successfully fulfilling the commitments it undertook upon joining the Council of Europe" (part of the post-monitoring process)."Latvia. Visit by Monitoring Committee Chair of the Councils of Europe Parliamentary Assembly" , in Amnesty International's Europe and Central Asia. Summary of Concerns in the Region July – December 2005"György Frunda, the Chairman of the COE Parliamentary Assembly's Monitoring Committee Is Visiting Latvia", October 17, 2005, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia site; retrieved July 6, 2007"The Prime Minister and the Chairman of the Monitoring Committee of the Council of Europe Discuss Closing of the Post-Monitoring Dialogue" , October 19, 2005, at the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Latvia site; retrieved July 6, 2007