Lenkovics elected head of top court

Budapest, December 1 (MTI) – Barnabas Lenkovics has been elected head of the Constitutional Court in a parliamentary vote today.

Lenkovics was elected to head the court in a vote of 132 in favour and 6 against. He has been a member of the court since April 21, 2007. He will start his tenure on February 25, 2015 and his mandate expires on April 21, 2016. He took his oath of office in parliament after the vote. He will succeed Peter Paczolay.

The newly-elected president said he would protect basic rights and the rule of law in his post.

Lenkovics said he was glad he had been elected with two-thirds majority support. He added that he hoped the curtailments of the scope of the court’s authority would be reduced, and Justice Minister Laszlo Trocsanyi had recently made statements to this effect. This would improve the regard for Hungary and the constitutional court abroad, he said.

Lenkovics expressed regret over the absence of Jobbik, Socialist and Democratic Coalition lawmakers from the vote.

Antal Rogan, head of the parliamentary group of the ruling Fidesz party, said Lenkovics is a highly-esteemed lawyer who is fit to meet the challenges of his profession at home and abroad.

The opposition parties expressed heavy criticism over Lenkovics’s candidacy. Deputies of the Socialist Party and the radical nationalist Jobbik left the chamber during the vote. Others voted “no”.

The Socialist Party’s deputy leader, Gergely Barandy, insisted that the only principle guiding the top court’s decisions “is to please [Prime Minister] Viktor Orban”. The Socialists do not back a candidate who has “supported discrimination against churches, forced retirement of judges and cheating in the municipal elections,” he said.

Jobbik stayed away from the vote because it did not want to legitimise the constitutional order created by Fidesz, Gabor Staudt, a lawmaker of the party, said.

The Democratic Coalition (DK) said “Lenkovics earlier was an exceptional lawyer who, in the last few years, has, regrettably and for an inexplicable reason, done much to solidify the power of the government which has dismantled the rule of law.”

Zsuzsanna Szelenyi, a deputy for Egyutt, said that Lenkovics, as a constitutional judge, had been known to ditch proposals critical of the government. He has also expressed opinions on such vital matters as the right to ownership or freedom of the press which are not in line with the rule of law, she said.

The opposition LMP party voted “no” on Lenkovics, because of his views that the separation of powers did not mean that the branches of power should “get in each other’s way”. Instead, according to Lenkovics, they have an obligation to cooperate, Andras Schiffer, the party’s leader, said.

The Dialogue for Hungary (PM) party said Lenkovics was unfit for the post due to his views. Lenkovics’s activities in the top court were solely in the interest of providing constitutional court backing to the Orban government’s illegitimate moves, the party said in a statement.

Gabor Fodor, leader of the Hungarian Liberal Party (MLP) who sits as an independent, said the vote “cannot be taken seriously” as the top court’s scope of authority had been narrowed and its members boosted by persons close to Fidesz over the past few years.

Photo: MTI

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters