Hungarian President Novák resigns over her pardon in child sex abuse case
News portal 444 reported on 2 February that the former deputy director of the Bicske children's home, who made children sign false confessions he either penned himself or just typed to cover up sexual abuse by the director, had been granted a presidential pardon. For the coercion he was sentenced to three years and four months imprisonment, while the director got an eight-year prison sentence.
The pardon was not granted recently, though. Pope Francis visited Hungary last April, ahead of which Novák set the record of pardons granted in one day, when she pardoned 22 people, including György Budaházy, who had been convicted of terrorism, and five others accused in the trial of the now defunct far-right group Hunnia. Budaházy, the head of Hunnia, was given a 13-year prison sentence in 2016 for “terrorist acts”, along with 16 other activists. They had all been convicted of carrying out a series of attacks between 2007 and 2009, with firearms and Molotov cocktails, against the homes of various socialist and liberal MPs, who at the time were in power.
Last April, I decided to pardon him believing that the convict had not abused the vulnerability of the children whom he had overseen. I made a mistake as the pardon and the lack of reasoning were suitable to raise doubts about the zero tolerance that applies to paedophilia,
Novák said in an extraordinary announcement on public television on Saturday. Her full statement can be read here.
Officially, she will hold this largely ceremonial office for a few more weeks. Parliament has 15 days to ask her to reconsider, but if she insists, MPs have no choice but to accept. Then they will have 30 days to elect a new president, which means that the ruling Fidesz-KDNP coalition should have someone in that post by the end of March at the latest.
She is the second president appointed by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán who was forced to resign. János Áder spent eight years in office, but his predecessor Pál Schmitt stepped down after Budapest's Semmelweis University revoked his doctorate, saying his thesis about the modern Olympic Games had been mostly copied from the work of two other authors.
Reacting to the subsequent scandal and wide-scale protest from opposition parties and NGOs, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Thursday initiated a constitutional amendment to ban anyone who commits a crime against a minor from receiving a presidential pardon. He has not addressed the issue ever since, not a peep in relation to the resignation of either Novák or Varga.
Oh yes, Judit Varga has also tendered her resignation. She was the one who countersigned the presidential pardon and who resigned from her post as Justice Minister in June 2023. She has now resigned from her seat as a member of parliament and from the EP list, "assuming political responsibility" for the incident.
I resign from public life, I resign my mandate as a lawmaker and also the top position on the European party list,
Varga said.
Fidesz MPs told news portal index they can hardly await PM Orbán's state of the nation address on 17 February and an off-site faction meeting on 21 February.
We can only hope that Viktor Orbán will explain why two well-established and popular female politicians of Fidesz have fallen in practically a few days,
said a rural MP, currently spending his fourth term in parliament. He added that they hoped that the head of government would name a new candidate for head of state as soon as possible, as well as the leader of the EP list to replace Judit Varga.
Címlapkép forrása: MTI /Hegedüs Róbert
