nam 22 uu 4500 10.17176/20220411-011245-0 DE-Verfassungsblog cr||||| 220410s2022||||xx#|||||o|||| ||| 0|eng|| 10.17176/20220411-011245-0 doi eng 342 23 Uitz, Renáta Author aut From Shrinking to Closing Civil Society Space in Hungary Uitz, Renáta Verfassungsblog 2022-04-10 Text txt rdacontent Computermedien c rdamedia Online-Ressource cr rdacarrier 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. CC BY-SA 4.0 Max Steinbeis Verfassungsblog gGmbH Verfassungsblog 2366-7044 https://verfassungsblog.de/from-shrinking-to-closing-civil-society-space-in-hungary/ raw object