Election 2014 – Top court rules govt campaign slogan unlawful

Budapest, March 18 (MTI) – The Kuria, Hungary’s supreme court, ruled on Tuesday that commercial broadcaster TV2 broke the election law by airing a 50 second government information advert which bore the ruling Fidesz party’s slogan “Hungary is performing better” and appeared similar to Fidesz adverts. The top court thereby overruled a decision by the National Election Committee rejecting an opposition complaint about the ad.

The Socialists and E-PM had turned to the election committee with the complaint about the March 9 broadcast, saying it was visually very similar to adverts by the Fidesz and Christian Democrats and its slogan was identical.

After the election committee rejected their complaint, the left-of-centre opposition parties asked the Kuria to review the committee’s decision.

The court also told the television station not to infringe the law in future.