József Gyönyör was a Hungarian lawyer and publicist from Slovakia. After graduating from a gymnasium in Šahy, he began his studies of law at Péter Pázmány University in Budapest. Afterwards he worked as a civil servant. Because of the Soviet policy at the time, which pursued collective revenge, Gyönyör was imprisoned with others civilians during the Second World War. Afterward he was forced to do manual labour.

Gyönyör was a very important person involved in the process of dealing with the Hungarians minority’s constitutional rights. It was not an easy task, especially because the main aim of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia was to shape a homogeneous country of two coequal nations – the Slovaks and the Czechs. The constitution did not mentioned anything about minorities or other ethinic groups in these nations. Thus, dealing with problems of other nationalities became a difficult issue, but also a very important problem that needed to be solved. From 1969 Gyönyör worked in the Slovak government at the Department of Nationalities. Soon he became the key figure of this department and had the greatest authority. He remained in the Department until his retirement.

As a publicist he wrote articles for the Új szó (New Word) newspaper from 1968 onward. Új szó was first printed in 1948 and was one of the few periodicals that was written in the Hungarian language.
Gyönyör was never persecuted for his activities. For a short time he was under police surveillance because some members of his family emigrated. Due to this he temporarily lost his citizenship, which he acquired again in 1955. Throughout his life he received awards for his activities, such as that in 1990 from Madách publishing.