Fruzsina Gárdos-Orosz

Constitutional Justice under Populism

The Transformation of Constitutional Jurisprudence in Hungary since 2010


Populist constitutionalism

According to Jan-Werner Müller, the central element of populist politics is the “Volksgeist” (people’s spirit). Identity and common culture are more important than the actual will of the political majority.1 Blocker takes this line of thought further, arguing that for this politics, ‘the people’ is not an existential entity, the concept of the people is not focused on society, but rather has a transcendent, metaphysical content: the people is itself a ‘collective subject’ based on tradition, shared suffering in the past and a history that unites the people.2 In Hungary, it was with such an ideology in mind that the Fundamental Law was adopted and amended, and it was this ideology that fundamentally determined the construction of constitutional identity. In the next chapter, I will examine the role of the Constitutional Court in the construction of constitutional identity and, in particular, in giving meaning to the concept of the historical constitution enshrined in the Fundamental Law.

Constitutional Justice under Populism

Tartalomjegyzék


Kiadó: Akadémiai Kiadó

Online megjelenés éve: 2024

ISBN: 978 963 454 971 0

In Hungary’s 2010 parliamentary elections, Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance and its coalition partner, the Christian Democratic Party won a landslide victory and the newly formed populist Orbán-government gained a two-thirds constitution-making parliamentary majority, which it has kept for four consecutive terms (so far). In the spring of 2011, the National Assembly adopted Hungary’s new Fundamental Law, which has since been amended twelve times. The transformation of the Hungarian Constitutional Court and constitutional jurisprudence has played a significant role in cementing the new regime. The changes can be followed in a chronological order in this book. The author starts with the explanation of the concept of constitutional adjudication, she then reviews the procedural-institutional developments and the critical doctrinal junctures of the past thirteen years with regard to the general assessment of the change in constitutional justice. Finally, the volume offers a reading of how the scholarly experiences and factual results of the thirteen years spent under populism compare to the ideal of constitutional-court-made constitutional justice.

Fruzsina Gárdos-Orosz is research professor at the Institute for Legal Studies, HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences and professor of constitutional law at ELTE Law School, Budapest. She worked as law clerk at the Hungarian Constitutional Court in different positions between 2003 and 2013. She has published extensively on different aspects of constitutional law, including the practice of the Hungarian Constitutional Court, the impact of different contemporary challenges to constitutional adjudication, as well as the rule of law resilience of Hungarian legal system.

Hivatkozás: https://mersz.hu/gardos-orosz-constitutional-justice-under-populism//

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