Hungarian MPs elect new Constitutional Court President, Prosecutor General

Péter Polt, the former Chief Prosecutor, was elected as President of the Constitutional Court with 134 votes in favour and 13 against, with no abstentions, securing the required two-thirds majority of parliamentary representatives. Polt has headed the Prosecutor General's Office for 21 out of its 35 years of existence. He was member of the Fidesz party between 1993 and 1995.

Polt was elected as a Constitutional Judge for a 12-year term on 20 May, taking office this week. His nine-year term as Prosecutor General was due to end in 2028, but he was appointed as a constitutional judge at the last minute. According to the law, a person cannot be elected once they reach the age of 70, a milestone that Polt will reach on 6 September.

In the same session, with identical voting results, Ákos Kozma, the commissioner for fundamental rights, was elected as a member of the Constitutional Court for a twelve-year term. He will take office on 26 September.

News portal Telex reminded that Kozma was appointed Commissioner for Fundamental Rights in 2019. He was therefore the Ombudsman when the World Federation of National Human Rights Institutions (also referred to as the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions or GANHRI) downgraded the Hungarian state institution to B-status in 2022. This means that the Hungarian ombudsman has no voting rights and cannot hold office or actively participate in the work of the UN Human Rights Council. The office of Kozma has been criticised repeatedly by domestic rights defenders. Last year, the Helsinki Committee and the Background Society (Háttér Társaság) concluded that he had vacated the position, meaning that people concerned about their rights would rather not turn to his office.

As ombudsman, Kozma did not review the anti-paedophile law that had been hijacked to become anti-LGBTQ legislation in 2021. Shortly afterwards, he declared that Hungary is a modern, democratic state governed by the rule of law.

The Parliament also elected, in a secret ballot with 134 votes in favour and 13 against, Gábor Bálint Nagy as Prosecutor General for a nine-year term. Nagy previously served as a department head prosecutor assigned to the Office of the Prosecutor General.

The new President and member of the Constitutional Court, as well as the new Prosecutor General, took their oaths before Parliament.

Speaker of Parliament, László Kövér realised in early May that the Constitutional Court had been operating with just 12 members instead of the legally mandatory 15, given that Tamás Sulyok became President of the Republic and the terms of Imre Juhász and László Salamon expired.

So they quickly found two candidates from the ranks of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party, Péter Polt and former Defence Minister Csaba Hende. Later they added a third candidate, Ákos Kozma.

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), the national tobacco shop scandal, the overpriced ventilators (HUF 300 billion) bought during the Covid pandemic from reaching court over the past 15 years.

When asked why Hungary's corruption statistics are getting worse year on year, Polt said it depends on who is doing the statistics and for whom. Polt said that

real corruption does not always correlate with perceptions.

Between 2014 and 2020, opposition politicians brought 119 charges, of which 0 resulted in an indictment.

The final vote on the bill laying the foundations for Hungary's 2026 central budget has been postponed at the initiative of the government. No specific reasons were given at the meeting. Before that, the amendments were voted through.

The final vote was postponed after it emerged this week that

• the cabinet's handouts (PIT exemption for mothers, vouchers for pensioners, etc.) and the lack of EU money have completely upset the budget,
• despite the margin cap being in place, inflation accelerated in May, mainly due to food prices, and
• more FX debt issuance is needed this year than planned.

The bill sent back by President Tamás Sulyok, which makes government decrees put in place during the 'state of danger' law, was passed on again.