Opposition turns to top court on election law amendment

The opposition Párbeszéd party has gathered enough signatures from MPs allowing it to turn to the Constitutional Court with the request that it review the Fidesz party’s amendment to the election law with regard to procedures and the local councils the ruling party submitted a few weeks ago, Párbeszéd’s group leader said on Sunday.

Tímea Szabó told an online press briefing that whereas various aspects of electronic administration were altered under the amendments, others fundamentally changed how local council elections are held.

One such is that local council by-elections cannot take place until scheduled municipal elections are held, she said.

Also, in settlements of more than 10,000 inhabitants, parties can only establish a list if their candidates are nominated in at least two-thirds of the individual districts, she added.

Szabó said these amendments were unconstitutional in various ways.

Already, she added, elections cannot be held due to “Fidesz restrictions” in 10 settlements and the rights of voters were being harmed.

Párbeszed to appeal to CCourt over ‘public hearings without audience’

The opposition Parbeszed-Greens party has said that it will turn to the Constitutional Court to appeal for scrapping a government decree that allows for public hearings to be held without an audience.

Párbeszed co-leader Bence Tordai told an online press conference on Monday that the government had used Hungary’s special legal order introduced earlier with regard to the war in Ukraine to overrun relevant regulations “and even the constitution itself” concerning “a matter totally unrelated to the war or its impacts”. He added that the government “had no authorisation” to do so.

The new institution is a “bad joke … legal nonsense”, Tordai said and insisted that local governments led by ruling Fidesz intended to put in practice public hearings that the public could not attend. The new mechanism “obviously violates fundamental democratic rights,” he said, adding that public hearings “are the second strongest instrument of participatory democracy after referenda”.

As we wrote today, leading parties draft laws to prevent Hungarian parties from receiving funding from abroad, details HERE.