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.