Hungary's ruling party nominates Chief Prosecutor as new Constitutional Court judge

The parliamentary group of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party announced on Facebook that it had nominated Csaba Hende, Deputy Speaker of Parliament in charge of legislation, and Péter Polt, Chief Public Prosecutor, as new members of the Constitutional Court.

Polt is expected to be elected as the ninth President of the Constitutional Court.

Csaba Hende was replaced by Fidesz from his constituency seat in Szombathely in April. Hende has been an MP since 2002.

The 15-member Constitutional Court currently has 12 members after Tamás Sulyok became President of the Republic and the terms of Imre Juhász and László Salamon expired. László Kövér recently asked a parliamentary committee to propose new judges for the court.

A candidate under the age of 70 can be elected as a constitutional judge. Polt will celebrate his 70th birthday in September.

Péter Polt, who also ran as a Fidesz candidate in the 1994 elections, was first elected Chief Prosecutor in 2000, during the first Orbán government, and held the post for six years. In 2010, after Fidesz secured its first two-thirds majority in Parliament, he was reappointed to the same post. Polt has played a major role in preventing corruption scandals such as the Elios case (linked to Orbán's son-in-law István Tiborcz) and the national tobacco shop scandal from reaching court over the past 15 years.

Polt was last confirmed by Parliament in 2019 for another nine-year term, which would have lasted until 2028. The National Assembly, in which the Fidesz-KDNP coalition holds a legislative majority, could decide on his successor this year, before the 2026 elections, and the new Chief Prosecutor would be in place until 2035.

Gergely Gulyás, the PM's chief of staff, told journalists today that the change was not because Fidesz feared losing next year's general election.

News portal Telex reminded that rumours of Péter Polt's possible resignation have been circulating for a long time, and these suspicions were reinforced by the 14th amendment of the Fundamental Law [i.e. Constitution] at the end of last year, which allowed the Chief Prosecutor to be elected not only from among prosecutors.

Csaba Hende was political state secretary at the Ministry of Justice from 1998 to 2002, and then coordinator of the Civic Circles called to life by Viktor Orbán until 2005. He has been a Member of Parliament since 2002, and served as Parliamentary Notary from 2005 to 2010. He was Minister of Defence in the second and third Orbán governments from 2010 to 2015. Since 2017, he has been the Deputy Speaker of Parliament in charge of legislation.

Péter Polt is a lawyer, prosecutor, university professor and former Fidesz politician. He served as Hungary's Chief Prosecutor from 2000 to 2006 and has held the position again since 2010. In 2010, President Pál Schmitt nominated Polt for the post of Chief Prosecutor, and he was elected by the Fidesz-KDNP coalition with a two-thirds majority. In November 2019, Parliament extended Polt's appointment for nine years.

The parliamentary groups' candidates will be heard at next Tuesday's meeting of the Judicial Committee, where the Fidesz majority will make a formal proposal to Parliament, which can vote on the new constitutional judges on 20 May.