Fruzsina Gárdos – Orosz, researcher at the Center for Legal and Social Studies HUN-REN, professor of Public Law at the Faculty of Law of ELTE University in Budapest, Hungary and member of the research group led by Dr. Sanz on the crisis of the rule of law in the EU funded by the Spanish Ministry and GVA, has published a book with the prestigious international legal publisher Wolters Kluwer in which she makes a detailed study on the jurisprudence of the Hungarian Constitutional Court in chronological order and analyzes the influence that populist movements have had on its jurisprudential development.
In April 2010, after eight years of harsh opposition to socialist governments, the conservative-nationalist Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Union party led by Viktor Orbán (current Prime Minister of Hungary), won the Hungarian elections with an unprecedented majority and, since then, the country has been plunged into a process of democratic decline that has triggered a chain reaction by EU institutions to protect EU values and funds. It should be recalled that in September 2022, the European Parliament issued a press release stating that Hungary could no longer be considered a full democracy, while condemning the “deliberate and systemic efforts of the Hungarian government” to undermine common European values and calling for the activation of the sanction procedure contained in Article 7 TEU.
In line with these developments that have taken place in recent years, Prof. Fruzsina Orosz has sought to provide a comprehensive analysis to describe how the perception of Hungarian constitutional adjudication has changed in the period between 2010 and 2022, and in which she describes the overall development of populist constitutionalism as well as the new constitutional order that has emerged as a result of the successive populist Orbán governments that have enjoyed a constituent majority in the Hungarian Parliament since 2010.
In addition to populism, the author discusses other challenges and events in Hungary that have had a direct influence on the constitutional revision, such as the effects of the financial crisis, the migration crises or the Covid-19 pandemic, among others.
In the first chapter, the author presents the basic concepts of constitutional review using a historical and theoretical-dogmatic approach, as well as referring to the institutional challenges that Europe has experienced in the 21st century and how they have had a direct influence on the role of the Constitutional Courts. Next, the second chapter describes the changes in the law governing the Hungarian Constitutional Court while the third chapter focuses on the key issues of the redefinition of constitutional review and related jurisprudence in the period 2010-2022.
In the fourth chapter, the author studies the relationship between the Constitutional Court and other ordinary courts in the protection of fundamental rights. In the fifth chapter, the author makes an introspection on the evolution of the constitutional control of legislation and judicial decisions in important cases related to economic crisis, terrorist threat or pandemic, referring to the constitutional impact derived from the use of crisis and emergency legislation to deal with conflicting socioeconomic relations.
Finally, the author makes a concluding reflection on the nature of the current Hungarian Constitutional Court as a result of the limitations arising from a changing political and constitutional environment.
