17 June 2025
Beyond Legal Restoration
A recently published proposal by former Constitutional Court judge Béla Pokol, appearing in the pro-government newspaper Magyar Nemzet, suggests introducing a new emergency regime designed to defend Hungary’s illiberal system against potential re-democratization efforts by a future government. Together with international criticism of Poland’s judicial reform in its process of democratic renewal, this reveals a profound dilemma: traditional legal formalism may no longer serve the needs of constitutional recovery. This post advocates for a post-formalist approach to democratic reconstruction. Continue reading >>
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13 June 2025
Overcoming the Hungarian Veto
A Russian victory over Ukraine would make a military confrontation with Europe more likely. To prevent this, the Union must prolong the Russian sanctions, including the freezing of 200 billion EUR in central bank assets. The prolongation of these sanctions requires a unanimous decision pursuant to Article 31(1) TEU. Hungary threatens to obstruct this decision. We propose a way to end Hungary's obstruction. It requires no grand actions, only a few interpretative steps and a narrow political consensus. Continue reading >>11 June 2025
Somewhere Over The Rainbow
On 5 June 2025, Advocate General Ćapeta issued her Opinion in Commission v. Hungary, a landmark ECJ case on Hungary’s “anti-LGBTIQ” law. While the law is overtly discriminatory, the Commission framed its case around internal market rules, Charter rights, and Article 2 TEU values. While this might seem curious, I argue this reflects a strategic “camouflaging” of non-discrimination claims to better protect LGBTIQ rights within the limits of current EU anti-discrimination and equality law. Continue reading >>
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10 June 2025
From Dialogue to Discord
Advocate General Ćapeta delivered her Opinion regarding a violation of Article 2 TEU, which lies at the heart of the pending case before the CJEU – a case that bears, quite appropriately, the name “Valeurs de l’Union”. Her opinion is likely to cause a stir. Even though this is not the final judgment, it is unprecedented for Article 2 TEU to be declared justiciable and found to have been infringed. Continue reading >>30 May 2025
Another Thread in the Spider Web
On April 14, 2025, the Hungarian parliament passed the 15th Amendment to the Fundamental Law, including new provisions allowing for the suspension of citizenship. Alongside the newly introduced Citizenship Suspension Law, the framework’s vague and expansive criteria provide the government with a powerful instrument to strip political opponents of their right to vote ahead of the 2026 parliamentary election - despite official claims to the contrary. Continue reading >>
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23 May 2025
We the Bugs
On April 14, 2025, the Hungarian parliament passed the 15th Amendment to the Fundamental Law, triggering mass protest across Budapest. Amongst its most far-reaching provisions is the constitutional entrenchment of binary sex. Read alongside a reworded Article XVI, which affirms that “every child has the right to the protection and care necessary for his or her proper physical, mental, and moral development”, these provisions establish a new hierarchy of fundamental rights, placing child protection above all others, including the right to peaceful assembly. These changes may now lend formal constitutional legitimacy to discriminatory legislation seeking to ban Pride Parades. Continue reading >>
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26 March 2025
Walking Out on Hungary
As the EU steps up its efforts to fund the defence of Europe, Hungary sticks to its policy of undermining those efforts whenever it can. Given that a Member State cannot be expelled from the EU, the Member States should simultaneously withdraw from the EU Treaties under Article 50 TEU and concurrently sign up to new EU Treaties without Hungary. Only this way could the EU effectively stand up to Russia, introduce important Treaty changes, and finally overcome tolerating Putin’s allies within the EU. Perhaps the Hungarian people would eventually join as well. Continue reading >>
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28 January 2025
The Diversity of Legal Governance of Memory in Europe
Memory laws pose a set of distinct challenges for modern democracies, including in the realm of human rights law. In the four reports, conducted during the MEMOCRACY project, we took stock of the dynamics, trade-offs, and the effects of legal governance of historical memory in a region ridden with mnemonic conflicts. This contribution distils the most interesting comparative findings of the reports, namely the fact that the countries’ own and foreign experiences with totalitarianism are legally and politically approached very differently. On this basis, we sketch the consequences and challenges of these fundamental differences, both for the establishment of a “European memory” and the various states’ approaches to modern geopolitics. Continue reading >>
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15 January 2025
The Branch That Finally Snapped
The story goes: a Polish politician, after allegedly committing a crime, leaves Poland and settles in Hungary. While historically not uncommon, the act of Hungary granting “asylum” to Marcin Romanowski generates crucial legal questions regarding the EU’s legal order. More specifically, what kind of asylum is at play here, whether this act was lawful from the perspective of the EU law, and what impact it has on the Union’s legal system. Continue reading >>17 October 2024