Name of the act/s*

Decision of the Hungarian Constitutional Court in case no. II/313/2019 (public, but not yet published in the Official Gazette)

Subject area

media freedom

Brief description of the contents of the act

The qualified minority of MPs challenged government decree no 229/2018. (XII. 5.) declaring the acquisition of the certain media companies by the Central European Press and Media Foundation a matter of national strategic importance.

The Constitutional Court weighed two constitutional values. On the one hand, the Court noted that the declaration of a certain acquisition by the government a matter of national strategic importance belongs to competence of the executive which can be subjected only to limited judicial review. On the other hand, the Court opined that media pluralism as a constitutional value is not as strongly protected by the Fundamental Law as a fundamental right and the petitioners did not prove that media pluralism would be seriously undermined in Hungary. Consequently, the Constitutional Court concluded that the challenged government decree was constitutional.

Comment

Central European Press and Media Foundation (KESMA) was established in Hungary, and almost immediately, most of the media owners that were considered by public opinion as affiliated or sympathetic to the Hungarian government transferred the ownership rights of their media holdings to it. According to a report by Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom drawn up at the request of the European Commission, it aggravates the already high risk to media pluralism in the country.

Secondary sources/ doctrinal works (if any)

Brogi, Elda et al. : Assessing Certain Recent Developments in the Hungarian Media Market Through the Prism of the Media Pluralism Monitor, Research Project Report 2019/01, Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom - Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, https://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/64284/Hungarian_media_market.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

*Act citation /year and number

Decision of the Hungarian Constitutional Court in case no. II/313/2019 (public, but not yet published in the Official Gazette)

Enacted by

Constitutional Court of Hungary

Official link to the text of the act

https://alkotmanybirosag.hu/uploads/2020/06/sz_ii_313_2019-.pdf