Prime Minister Péter Magyar, leader of the Tisza Party, on Thursday announced his party’s five nominees for the Constitutional Court on Facebook.
Magyar named his five Constitutional Court candidates
The nominees are Nóra Chronowski, a university professor, doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and constitutional lawyer; Miklós Ligeti, an ombudsman, criminal lawyer and legal director of Transparency International Hungary; András György Kovács, a Kúria (supreme court) council chair judge and administrative lawyer with a PhD; Árpád Gábor Orosz, former head of the Kúria’s Civil College, a council chair judge, civil lawyer and European legal expert who has taught at the University of Szeged since 1993; and Zsolt Szomora, deputy director of the Institute of Criminal Sciences at the University of Szeged’s Faculty of Law and Public Administration and a habilitated university professor.
Magyar said the nominees’ committee hearings would be held on Monday, and parliament would elect the five new Constitutional Court judges on Tuesday morning.
The Prime Minister added that, true to the Tisza party’s pledge, he would propose Constitutional Court nominees who meet not only the requirements of the Fundamental Law but every professional criterion.He added that over recent weeks the government had held extensive consultations with a number of outstanding jurists, weighing considerations of irreproachability, integrity, independence and genuine professional achievement.Care had also been taken, he wrote, to ensure that the candidates would cover all branches of law: constitutional law, criminal law, administrative law, civil law and fundamental rights.
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Background to the vacancies
The mandates of four Constitutional Court judges – among them Péter Polt, the Court’s president – expired on 1 September, after the 17th amendment to the Fundamental Law, adopted in July, stipulated that “the mandate of a member of the Constitutional Court shall terminate upon reaching the age of 70”.In addition to Mr Polt, this age limit had already been reached by Mária Haszonicsné Ádám, Miklós Juhász and Zoltán Lomnici.
Under the law, the National Assembly has 60 days to elect new Constitutional Court judges to replace those who have left. Parliament elects the new judges by secret ballot, requiring a two-thirds majority of MPs, for nine-year terms. The 17th amendment to the Fundamental Law reduced the length of judges’ mandates from 12 years to nine.
Further changes at the Court
Ágnes Czine, the Court’s vice-president, will see her 12-year mandate as a Constitutional Court judge expire in November.
One judge, Csaba Hende – a former MDF and later Fidesz MP and defence minister – had already left the 15-member body in July, as a result of the 17th amendment to the Fundamental Law and the rules of the Constitutional Court Act. In his place, Parliament elected Pál Sonnevend, a university professor and former dean who heads a department at ELTE’s Faculty of Law, as a Constitutional Court judge.
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