Fruzsina Gárdos-Orosz

Constitutional Justice under Populism

The Transformation of Constitutional Jurisprudence in Hungary since 2010


Not everything is what it appears to be

The “clientelism, the capture of the state and the Gleichschaltung (direct political control of certain institutions), which is also characteristic of populist governments, requires the use of legal instruments”, Zoltán Szente states, describing one of the characteristics of populist constitutionalism identified by populism literature.1 In Hungarian jurisprudence, there are views that after 2010, the Constitutional Court was taken over by a political majority with a constitution-making majority through the nomination and election of new constitutional judges (court packing), which, by transforming the legal system, seek to implement only their own principled and/or pragmatic ideas with the full range of legal instruments at their disposal by the enforcement of the Fundamental Law.2 We have shown that, certainly, the restructuring of the composition of the Constitutional Court and also the constitutional and legal system has had a fundamental impact on the interpretation of the constitution.3

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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