Inventing Constitutional Identity in Hungary

Bárd, Petra and Chronowski, Nóra and Fleck, Zoltán (2022) Inventing Constitutional Identity in Hungary. MTA LAW WORKING PAPERS, 2022 (6). pp. 1-31. ISSN 2064-4515

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Abstract

Constitutional traditions can play an important role in the identity of states. A modern version of social integration can be based on constitutional identity. Hungary's public law history has few elements that are compatible with modern constitutional values. Our public law tradition is mostly one of affirming the prerogatives of the feudal estates rather than of parliamentarism and respect for individual rights. After 2010, the ruling party made a sharp break with the ideals ofregime change and declared a new beginning. To do so, it invented the Hungarian historical constitution and the doctrine of the Holy Crown, which originally aimed to restore the territorial unity of the country between the two world wars. In addition to nationalist identification, this political and ideological turn was also a way of supporting the topos of the decline of the West and serving as a shield against European critics who were calling the destruction of the rule of law to account. However, the values of the “historical constitution” are not just political ideology, but a legal interpretation enshrined in the Fundamental Law, which bindsthosewho apply the law. TheConstitutionalCourt,which haslostitsindependence, has done this job by interpreting the Preamble to the Fundamental Law

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