The debate has flared up after prosecutors requested the lifting of the immunity of Péter Magyar and two Fidesz MPs. But is parliamentary immunity still necessary at all?

The timing of the request from the Office of the Prosecutor General was enough to set Hungarian public life buzzing. The immunity of three MPs was requested on the very same day, even though one case concerns a missing mobile phone, while the other two involve alleged financial damage worth billions of forints.

So what exactly are these three cases about?

Three cases, three very different allegations

The differences between the three cases are obvious at first glance.

According to prosecutors, in Péter Magyar’s case, proceedings should continue over a suspected theft. The prosecution alleges that in June 2024, at the Ötkert nightclub in Budapest, Magyar took a man’s mobile phone and subsequently threw the device into the Danube.

The allegations involving Miklós Seszták and Balázs Hankó are of an entirely different scale.

Seszták is facing suspicions of accepting a bribe in connection with his official duties, while Hankó is suspected of breach of fiduciary duty causing particularly significant financial damage. According to the prosecution, the case linked to Seszták involves more than HUF 11 billion in unlawful advantage.

Is a crime only a crime when it involves billions?

Magyar’s case therefore pales in comparison with the other two in purely financial terms.

But that does not make it legally irrelevant. Theft is a criminal offence under Hungary’s Criminal Code, and one that can be prosecuted by the state.

The real question, then, is not whether we consider one case more serious than another. It is whether smaller offences should effectively be overlooked simply because someone else is accused of committing a much larger one.

And, of course, the mobile-phone case did not begin yesterday.

Proceedings over the incident were already being considered when Magyar was still a Member of the European Parliament. Hungarian authorities asked the European Parliament to waive his immunity, but in a decision adopted in October 2025, the EP declined to grant the request.

Magyar moves to seize the initiative

Magyar has once again sought to take control of the political narrative. Alongside his unusually sharp attack on the Office of the Prosecutor General, he quickly put forward his own proposal: parliamentary immunity should be abolished in cases involving offences prosecuted by the state.

At first sight, the proposal may look like a major political move. Political analyst Gábor Török has pointed out, however, that its practical impact might be considerably smaller than it appears, since Parliament has generally lifted MPs’ immunity in cases involving publicly prosecuted offences.

But there is an important detail that can easily get lost in the political argument.

Parliamentary immunity is not only about whether Parliament ultimately allows an MP to be prosecuted.

It is also about what happens before that decision is made.

For an ordinary citizen, certain immediate investigative measures and coercive measures may be available to the authorities. In the case of an MP, however, parliamentary authorisation may be required.

This means that immunity can provide more than a symbolic shield. It can give a politician time, information and a degree of procedural protection. An MP may have an opportunity to prepare for proceedings rather than being caught completely off guard by a search of their home or another coercive measure.

What happens to MPs without immunity?

The arguments on the other side, however, are not without merit either.

The original purpose of parliamentary immunity was precisely to protect MPs from politically motivated prosecution and to safeguard the independence of the legislature. That is why modern democracies do not generally treat immunity simply as a personal privilege for politicians.

The real question, therefore, is not whether the issue is about Péter Magyar or Fidesz.

Nor is it a question of HUF 11 billion versus a mobile phone.

The fundamental issue is where to draw the line between protecting elected representatives from political abuse of state power and giving politicians special protection during criminal proceedings.

That line matters regardless of who happens to be in government, who sits in opposition and whose name appears in a prosecutor’s request.

After all, parliamentary immunity was not created to put politicians above the law. Its purpose was to ensure that the law could not simply be turned into a political weapon against them.

The difficult part is deciding where one protection ends and the other begins.

As we wrote on Wednesday, PM Péter Magyar accuses prosecutors of ‘protecting mobsters’ in escalating immunity row.