Fruzsina Gárdos-Orosz

Constitutional Justice under Populism

The Transformation of Constitutional Jurisprudence in Hungary since 2010


Explanation of Hungarian Constitutional Court practice – in a crisis situation

For many years after the democratic change of regime (1989), the Constitutional Court was the supreme guardian of constitutionality in Hungary, both against the legislature and the executive.1 The new constitution was defended by the institutionalised involvement of the legal elite in order to help the political majority find a way to align with Western trends in constitutional democracy, in order to create the conditions for the separation of powers, the primacy of human rights protection and a prosperous market economy. It has often been said that the Hungarian Constitutional Court is one of the most prominent and active constitutional courts in the region.2 One would have thought that the Constitutional Court would have played a prominent role in scrutinising the legislative response to the serious social, economic, health and other challenges of the last ten years. However, our expert perception is that the Constitutional Court has not played a significant role in the development of constitutional politics and constitutional law, neither in the constitutional management of the financial crisis, nor of migration, nor of the pandemic. Of course, the few decisions that have dealt with substantive constitutional issues in recent years have been very exciting for constitutional lawyers, but we have to admit that these have been rather constitutional titbits that have not had a significant impact on the functioning of our legal system. Thus, while academic legal scholarship played a major role in the development of the legal system in the 1990s, following the democratic regime change, in the new regime change, which the Prime Minister called illiberal, the constituent power did not intend to give a major role for the Constitutional Court.

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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