The Hungarian Constitutional Court: Dialogue in practice

Gyulai, Attila and Pócza, Kálmán and Dobos, Gábor (2024) The Hungarian Constitutional Court: Dialogue in practice. In: Constitutional Review in Central and Eastern Europe. Routledge, Abingdon, pp. 114-141. ISBN 9781032506609; 9781003399483

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Abstract

This chapter focuses on the question of to what extent has the Hungarian Constitutional Court (HCC) constrained the room for manoeuvre of the legislature in politically salient issues in the period 1990–2020. After separating three different periods of the Hungarian Constitutional Court, it explores what kind of relationship could be discerned between the political activism of the court and the strength of its decisions. One of the main findings of our quantitative research is that political polarization of the court started well before the 2010 elections and that the first court led by László Sólyom constrained less the room for manoeuvre of the legislature in politically salient issues than previously supposed in the literature. We conclude that it was rather the third court after 2010 which actively interfered in the legislative process and constrained more heavily the legislature than any other court previously. While becoming increasingly severe in politically relevant cases, the Hungarian Constitutional Court has been transformed from a cohesive one to a more divided one – well before the court-packing and struggle with the government after the 2010 election.

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