15 December 2023
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. Continue reading >>
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26 May 2022
Illiberals of the World Unite in Budapest – Yet Again
Despite their strong localist and nativist inclinations, traditionalism does not turn illiberal democrats and autocrats against international cooperation, and their political ambitions do not halt at disrupting the operation of supranational organizations. Rather, they use both ad hoc opportunities and a regularly recurring annual events for networking. What marks these occasions is the careful selection of trusted participants based on strong personal connections, along shared values across different religions and continents. Continue reading >>
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10 April 2022
From Shrinking to Closing Civil Society Space in Hungary
In a classy late Friday dump, on April 8, 2022, the National Election Commission fined over a dozen Hungarian civil society organizations for illegally interfering with the referendum held on election day (April 3, 2022). These NGOs ran a month-long campaign encouraging voters to cast invalid votes in response to the government’s referendum question. Altogether the fines add up to 24.000 EUR: the leaders of the campaign, Háttér Society for LGBTQI rights and Amnesty International Hungary were fined approx. 8.000 EUR each. The NEC found that encouraging voters to cast invalid ballots amounts to an abuse of rights, as it defeats the purpose of exercising popular sovereignty through a popular referendum. Continue reading >>
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15 December 2021
On Constitutional Transition out of Hybrid Regimes
In the context of hybrid regimes, where constitutional change is gradual, the search for a magical (if not revolutionary) ‘moment’ of constitutional reset is futile. Instead, constitutional scholarship is better off with envisioning a process of constitutional (re-)settlement through legally imperfect processes of trial and error. Continue reading >>
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19 July 2021
All Eyes on LGBTQI Rights
In Fedotova v Russia, the ECtHR found that Russia overstepped the boundaries of its otherwise broad margin of appreciation because it had “no legal framework capable of protecting the applicants’ relationships as same-sex couples has been available under domestic law”. The case foreshadows a future wherein the familiar line of cases advancing the protection of same sex couples will need to be complemented by a jurisprudence that engages with the backslash against LGBTQI rights. Continue reading >>
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29 June 2021
Oblique Strategies
On June 25, 2021 Hungary’s two top judges – the president of the Constitutional Court, Tamás Sulyok and the chief justice of the Kúria, András Varga Zs. – warned attendants of a conference on the Fundamental Law of an impending constitutional coup. They were addressing the nation’s legal elite – including the speaker of the Parliament, the Minister of Justice and the Prosecutor in Chief – on the premises of the Kúria. The guardians of the Fundamental Law activated the language of militant democracy ahead of the 2022 elections. Continue reading >>
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14 December 2020
Towards an EU Cast in the Hungarian and Polish Mould
It is a serious achievement on Hungary’s and Poland’s part to drive EU institutions so far into mocking the rule of law in the spirit of defending it. Then again, this is exactly what illiberal constitutional engineering is about: using familiar constitutional and legal techniques for ends that subvert constitutionalism and the rule of law. Continue reading >>
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08 October 2020
Finally: The CJEU Defends Academic Freedom
The CJEU’s judgment against Hungary in the CEU case is the first major judicial pronouncement by a European court on the institutional dimension of academic freedom as a fundamental human right. Infringement action has become the surprise weapon in the Commission’s rule of law toolbox. The initial surprise is a thing of the past: over the years the Hungarian government has built some defenses of its own, using familiar components of the European constitutional architecture in service of illiberal democracy. Continue reading >>29 September 2020
No Doubt, Lots of Benefit
The Hungarian government demanded the dismissal of Commissioner Vera Jourová over a quip she made in an interview in the German press. The day before the Commission’s first annual report on the rule of law is scheduled to land, the EU finds itself steeped in a high level inter-institutional conflict — sown by a self-proclaimed illiberal democrat. This is what being stranded by one’s own self-deception looks like. Continue reading >>
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26 May 2020