Hungary: Constitutional (R)evolution or Regression?

Abstract

Since 2010, Hungarian constitutionalism has turned in a direction that has widely been regarded as illiberal and has attracted criticism from European and international organisations and other Member States. Central to the change was the adoption of the new Fundamental Law in 2011. The Hungarian report explores the post-2010 period in the context of EU and international law. Whilst the Hungarian

Populism and Liberal Constitutionalism

“…However, the threshold of validity was not met, since less than half of the adult population submitted its vote. Nevertheless, in the light of the clear support expressed by most of the valid votes, the government claimed this outcome as a political success and retained its policy against migration quotas (Chronowski et al, 2019(Chronowski et al, , p. 1473. These examples demonstrate that populist governments tend to invite the people to the ballot only when a confirmation of the actual governmental policies is expected from referenda.…”

“…More worryingly, Constitutional Court rulings based on the previous Constitution of Hungary have been repealed, which is not so understandable, since Constitutional Court decisions do not have any legal effect. 21 Consequently, instead of systematic discrepancies, the Hungarian Constitutional Court focuses mostly on individual concerns, which have beyond doubt paramount importance for the persons involved, but not from the perspective of the whole constitutional system (Chronowski et al, 2019(Chronowski et al, , p. 1459.…”