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2019 |
Osservatorio sulle fonti / Observatory on Sources of Law ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section: Sources of Law in the EU member States HUNGARY By Viktor Zoltán Kazai, Central European University, Budapest |
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Name of the Act/s |
Bill no. T/8016 on the amendment of certain acts related to the establishment of a single instance procedure of local government offices / T/8016 számú törvényjavaslat egyes törvényeknek az egyfokú járási hivatali eljárások megteremtésével összefüggő módosításáról |
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Date of entry into force of original text |
Adopted, not yet promulgated |
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Date of Text (Adopted) |
10 December 2019 |
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Type of text (name in English / name in the official language) |
Parliamentary act / Törvény |
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Enacted by |
Hungarian National Assembly |
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Subject area |
administrative judiciary, judicial independence |
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Comment |
In July 2019, the Hungarian Government postponed the entry into force of the very controversial administrative court reform for an indefinite period of time because of severe criticism voiced by European and national stakeholders. The present bill amends several legislative acts in order to yield similar results as the original administrative court reform would have produced without setting up a separate judicial system. Let us summarize the key points: Firstly, the law entitles public authorities to file a constitutional complaint alleging the unconstitutional limitation of their competences and rights. Secondly, the membership of the Constitutional Court and the ordinary judicial appointment will cease to be incompatible. This means, on the one hand, that the judicial mandate of justices of the Constitutional Court who served as ordinary judges before their election will only be suspended temporarily. On the other hand, justices of the Constitutional Court will get the right to request to be nominated as an ordinary judge by the President of the Republic. In addition, the law makes it possible to appoint these justices to the position of chamber president at the Supreme Court after the expiry of their mandate at the Constitutional Court. Besides these major changes, the bill also introduces some seemingly less important modifications. For example, it modifies the rules on case distribution and extend the mandatory national security vetting to a much larger number of judges without any justification. The existing administrative and labor law courts will cease to exist, and administrative law judges will be required to continue their work at the regional courts. Finally, the law strengthens the Supreme Court’s power to tie the hands of lower court judges. It will become the obligation of the judge to provide a written justification if her interpretation of the law differs from a previous decision delivered by the Supreme Court. An “unjustified deviation” can have a negative impact on her career. |
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Secondary sources/ doctrinal works (if any) |
According to the analysis of Amnesty International Hungary the bill extends political influence over the judiciary and guarantee judicial decisions favorable to the Government in politically sensitive cases even without setting up a separate administrative court system. For a more detailed analysis see: Kazai, Viktor Z.: One Step Back, Two Steps Forward: The Hungarian judiciary’s independence is still in danger, VerfBlog, 2019/11/26, https://verfassungsblog.de/one-step-back-two-steps-forward/ |
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Available Text |