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Since the elections of 2010, the right-wing coalition has a supermajority in the Hungarian Parliament, and is able to amend the Constitution without any further ado. The Constitution became a part of the political tool-kit which may and is amended as the government needs it to be amended. Under these circumstances, the Constitutional Court cannot be a vigorous guardian of constitutional values, and the Parliament did everything in order to housetrain the formerly widely acknowledged Constitutional Court: cut back its powers filled the bench with rather loyal justices and blocked the critical decisions.The present article is aimed to describe and to critically analyze these strategies in a national and European context.

The right-wing Hungarian Government has not fully respected the judicial independence since the landslide victory of 2010 which has confirmed many worries and critiques. As it was reported in this journal earlier, many judges were forced to retire by a constitutional amendment in 2012.The European Court of Justice (ECJ) found this to be contrary to EU law especially to the antidiscrimination directive. The new Fundamental Law of Hungary also renamed the former Supreme Court to Kúria and this enabled the dismissal of the President of the Supreme Court who lodged an individual complaint before the ECtHR. The ECtHR found a violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) and Article 6 (the right to access to court) confirming the alleged illegality. Moreover, the case is also of interest to demonstrate the very complex interplay between national and international legal remedies.

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In seiner neueren Rechtsprechung beschäftigt sich der EuGH oft mit der Frage der Wiederaufnahme des Verfahrens sowie mit ihrem Verhältnis zu dem unionsrechtlichen Staatshaftungsanspruch. Diese Rechtsprechung wirkt auf den ersten Blick als unübersichtlich, schwer nachvollziehbar und von den Eventualitäten des Einzelfalls so belastet zu sein, dass sie sich von einer Verallgemeinerung entfesselt. Der vorliegende Beitrag hat es vor, zur Systematisierung dieser zwei Ansprüche beizutragen.