Articles for category: Ungarn

A Constitutional Dignitary Conceived in the Orbán-Regime

On 26 February, Tamás Sulyok, the former President of the Hungarian Constitutional Court, was elected Head of State by the Parliament. The election of Tamás Sulyok as a member of the Constitutional Court and then as its president was part of the process during which Fidesz took over the Constitutional Court. Sulyok’s presidency (2016-2024) was a testimony to the fact that the Constitutional Court has become subservient to the Fidesz-dominated political branches, and there is no sign that he has actively tried to do anything against it. Based on what we have seen so far, therefore, Tamás Sulyok is part of the Orbán-regime, and nothing suggests that he will exercise greater autonomy and independence in his role as Head of State.

11. März 2024

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Autocratic (Il)legalism

It is a common myth that since the Fidesz-KDNP coalition has almost always had a two-thirds parliamentary majority since 2010, the Orbán-government could pass its illiberal legislative reforms in a legally correct manner. In reality, however, many laws that constitute the pillars of Orbán’s illiberal regime were enacted in violation of the procedural requirements of the rule of law. The European Commission’s country visit to Hungary provides an opportunity to remind the EU bodies of their responsibility to enforce all requirements of the rule of law without compromise.

21. Februar 2024

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Ein Blockierer als Vorsitzender

Ungarn übernimmt am 1. Juli 2024 den Vorsitz im Rat der EU. Das stößt auf Widerstand, denn zentrale Teile von Ungarns Verfassungspolitik stehen mit rechtsstaatlichen Grundsätzen nicht im Einklang. Das Land gilt in Europa als Außenseiter und Quertreiber, es betreibt eine Blockadepolitik. Zuletzt hat Ungarns Ministerpräsident auf dem Dezember-Gipfel des Europäischen Rates erneut seine Fähigkeiten als Veto-Spezialist unter Beweis gestellt. Und solch ein Land soll den Ratsvorsitz übernehmen? Rechtlich lässt sich das kaum verhindern, denn der Vorsitz ist gemäß dem Primärrecht festgelegt und kann Ungarn ohne Rechtsverstöße nicht entzogen werden. Politisch wäre ein Entzug unklug, weil Ungarn ihn zum Anlass nähme, weniger kompromissbereit zu sein.

13. Januar 2024

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Same, Same but Different?

The Commission’s decision to release a significant amount of EU money is a testament to some serious pitfalls in the mechanism, which governs the unblocking of frozen EU funds. To recall, Hungary’s endowments are blocked via two different channels, based on two different conditionality criteria, which have some overlapping points. Both prescribe reforms to preserve the independence of the judiciary, which according to the Commission’s justification has been successfully accomplished by Hungary.  The Commission has, however, never published a detailed plan that would attach a specific amount to be released to every sufficiently satisfied conditionality criterion. In this blog post, I showcase that the overlap between the two conditionality mechanisms and the absence of a robust ex-ante blueprint for releasing frozen funds make the unblocking process highly obscure. This lack of transparency both decreases the efficiency and robustness of conditionality, and increases the tendency for inter-institutional conflicts.

21. Dezember 2023

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Militant Rule of Law

To protect the rule of law based legal system against abusive use of the loopholes, imperfections, contradictions of the law, to avoid legal inertia legal positivist arguments are needed to convince and mobilize the legal mind. The same applies when the blind fortune of democracy provides the opportunity to erase the legally enthroned injustice and domination of illiberal regimes. When it comes to legal enactments that serve legal cheating the rule of law must respond to systemic abuse of the law, and that requires and justifies a rule of law based exceptionalism and a systemic remedy.

20. Dezember 2023

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The EU’s Faustian Bargain

Twelve years into the EU’s rule of law crisis, this week has demonstrated that EU leaders are still unwilling to confront their own complicity in Orbán’s rise and to do something about it. Is this sad spectacle a price worth paying in exchange for a symbolic gesture of goodwill to Ukraine? That is the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is this: if the EU continues to treat the rule of law as a bargaining chip and to make promises it won’t keep, for how much longer will our Union remain a club worth joining?

17. Dezember 2023

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Orbán’s Veto Play – The Subsidiarity Card

Viktor Orbán is known to use veto threats in the European Council to get his way. This time, he was keen to see that after months of tense exchanges with the Commission, Hungary gets access to EU funds that had been blocked in order to achieve compliance with the rule of law and fundamental rights conditionality. So, PM Orbán saw it fit to loudly contest Ukraine’s accession and the financial aid package of 50 billion Euros. This may be PM Orbán’s strongest veto play to date.

15. Dezember 2023

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Taking Revenge for Dissent

Hungary’s latest judicial reform in May 2023 came in response to  EU decisions to suspend the country’s access to funds due to serious rule of law concerns. The reform aimed, among other things, to strengthen the independence of the Kúria, the Supreme Court of Hungary. Experience to date shows that while on the level of formal legal rules, some improvements towards the rule of law have been made, in actual daily practice, the opposite is happening: While steps have been taken to restore the independence of the Kúria, the Chief Justice is working on further eroding the independence of individual judges.

13. Dezember 2023

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Trick and Treat?

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Almost a year has passed since the European Union decided to block the payment of EUR 27 billion in union funds to Hungary under several instruments. Access to the largest part of the frozen funds - altogether EUR 13 billion - depends on whether Hungary complies with its undertakings to strengthen judicial independence. The government claims to have met all four of the so-called super milestones by adopting a judicial package in May 2023 and requests access to the blocked funds under Hungary’s Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF) and ten different operative programmes. However, upon taking a closer look at the preconditions to the payments and the nature and implementation of the proposed reforms, it becomes clear that Hungary is still playing tricks to avoid compliance.

12. Dezember 2023

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Protecting the Fairness of European Parliament Elections via Preliminary Ruling

Supreme or constitutional courts regularly step in to protect the democratic process by deciding election disputes. It is remarkable that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has so far barely been engaged concerning the European Parliament (EP) elections. Using Hungary as an example, I will argue in the following that the CJEU is institutionally well-positioned to help protect the integrity of the 2024 EP elections via preliminary ruling procedures. Hungarian democracy has been in decline, according to the EP, the Commission and various democracy indices. The problems include the lack of a level playing field, targeted action by authorities against opposition parties, overlaps between the activities of the government and the governing party, state funding of campaigning and party financing in general, lack of media pluralism, and the different means of voting for citizens living abroad (postal vote for some and not for others). I argue that the CJEU could and should be engaged to protect the fairness of the EP elections in Hungary.

7. Dezember 2023

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