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

Name of the Act/s

Act no. LXV of 2019 on the amendment of certain acts related to parliamentary immunity / 2019. évi LXV. törvény a képviselők mentelmi jogával összefüggésben egyes törvények módosításáról

Date of entry into force of original text

16 July 2019

Date of Text (Adopted)

2 July 2019

Type of text

Parliamentary act / törvény

Enacted by

Hungarian National Assembly

Reference to the Constitution (art)

Article 6 (1) (parliamentary immunity)

Article 4 (2) and (5) (qualified majority requirement)

The English version of the Fundamental Law is available at: https://hunconcourt.hu/uploads/sites/3/2018/11/thefundamentallawofhungary_20181015_fin.pdf

Subject area

Parliamentary immunity

Comment

The present parliamentary act amends certain rules on parliamentary immunity regulated by Act no. XXXVI on the National Assembly. According to the previous version of the law, candidates for parliamentary elections registered by the National Elections Committee benefitted from the same parliamentary immunity regime as elected MPs. It also meant that criminal procedure could only be initiated or continued against candidates suspected of breaking the law with the permission of the National Elections Committee (inviolability).

The new rules provide that candidates for parliamentary elections registered by the National Elections Committee are no longer entitled to inviolability if they have been subject to coercive measures restricting personal liberty ordered by a judge or the indictment has been filed by the prosecutor before the decision of the National Elections Committee on their registration. Therefore, in these cases the immunity does not need to be lifted.

The new regulation also applies to candidates for the European parliamentary elections.

The present act, also called “lex Czeglédy”, springs from a scandal concerning Csaba Czeglédy, a politician suspected of having committed corruption related criminal offenses. Criminal procedure initiated against Mr. Czeglédy had to be terminated after he had been registered as candidate for EP elections of the political party Democratic Coalition (Demokratikus Koalíció) in 2019. Since the required two-thirds majority of the members of the National Elections Committee has not been achieved, his immunity has not been lifted.

Shortly after that decision, the Ministry of Justice sent a letter to the President of the National Elections Committee expressing its disapproval of the refusal to lift Mr. Czeglédy’s immunity. On 23 May, prominent members of the Fidesz-KNDP governing coalition introduced the bill aiming at the amendment of the relevant rules on immunity. According to the Democratic Coalition, Mr. Czeglédy is victim of a show trial.

Available Text

http://njt.hu/cgi_bin/njt_doc.cgi?docid=214951.370152