Wrestling with Constitutionalism: the Supermajority and the Hungarian Constitutional Court

Abstract

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.

Talking Past Each Other: On Common Misperceptions in the Rule of Law Debate

“…13 Vincze (2014), the effects of the packing are clear to see nowadays. The Constitutional Court applies very different standards if a private individual lodges a complaint and if a government body submits one.…”

“…20 Scheppele (2013) and Vincze (2014). This argument emerged in Hungary in 2019 during the Finnish presidency of the EU as, among others, the Prime Minister put forward that Finland should not criticise Hungary for the adopted model of the Constitutional Court because Finland has no such institution (Boffey 2019).…”