Criminal complaint filed against Hungarian President Sulyok

The opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) is filing a criminal complaint on suspicion of high-value fraud and abuse of office in a case involving President Tamás Sulyok, DK MEP Klára Dobrev said on Friday.

Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok in April 2024. Photo: MTI/Bruzák Noémi

Dobrev, a list leader of the DK-MSZP-Párbeszéd parties at this year’s European Parliament election, told a press conference that Sulyok as a lawyer had been involved in “an illegal transfer of Hungarian farmland to foreigners” in the early 2000s.

The current President was a trustee-on-delivery for the Austrian owners of Agronomia Kft, which was “managing land fraud” between January 14, 2013 and December 23, 2015, Dobrev said. During the period, Botanic-Garden, a company registered in Sopron, in western Hungary, was set up as Agronomia’s successor and Sulyok was also a trustee-on-delivery for this company between November 13, 2014 and February 15, 2016, she added.

Certified public records show that the President was active as a lawyer until October 4, 2019, although he had been a constitutional judge since September 27, 2014 and the deputy leader of the Constitutional Court since April 1, 2015, Dobrev said. In line with the law on the Constitutional Court, a constitutional judge must not carry out any economic activity, including working as a lawyer, she added.

When Sulyok became the trustee-on-delivery of the company registered in Sopron, he was already a Constitutional Court judge, she said.

Sulyok “knowingly violated his oath as a Constitutional Court judge and acted serving the interests of an Austrian land mafia company,” she added.

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