Chronowski Nóra - Kovács Ágnes - Körtvélyesi Zsolt - Mészáros Gábor: The Hungarian Constitutional Court and the Abusive Constitutionalism
2022/7
As part of the paper series on the rule of law backsliding in Hungary in the past decade this article focuses on the role of the Constitutional Court, and explains the constitutional developments in Hungary, in the first part, by recalling the establishment and constitutional status of the Constitutional Court under the former Constitution before 2010 (section 1), then by outlining the constitutional and legislative background of the court-capture, and referring to the new attitudes brought by the new justices to the Court (section 2). In the second part, the changes will be illustrated with case studies by reflecting on some formative issues that are landmarks on the one hand from the viewpoint of the basis of the constitutional review, on the other hand they are explaining the forms of abusive practice and help to understand how the Court adopted itself to the expectations of the illiberal regime (section 3).
The full series: The Crisis of the Rule of Law, Democracy and Fundamental Rights in Hungary (Paper I: 2022/4) – Tactics Against Criticism of Autocratization. The Hungarian Government and the EU’s Prolonged Toleration (Paper II: 2022/5) – Inventing Constitutional Identity in Hungary (Paper III: 2022/6) – The Hungarian Constitutional Court and the Abusive Constitutionalism (Paper IV: 2022/7) – Is the EU Toothless? An Assessment of the Rule of Law Enforcement Toolkit (Paper V: 2022/8) – The CJEU and the ECtHR – High Hopes or Wishful Thinking? (Paper VI: forthcoming) – The Changes Undermining the Functioning of a Constitutional Democracy (Paper VII: 2022/9)