This legislative reform package was adopted to meet the so-called super milestones aimed at restoring the independence of the judiciary that were set by the Council of the European Union as a precondition for accessing frozen EU funds under Hungary’s Recovery and Resilience Fund. The changes concern the National Judicial Council, the Supreme Court (Kúria), the references for preliminary rulings to the CJEU, and the competence of the Constitutional Court.

Hungarian NGOs qualified the act a remarkable step to achieve the partial restoration of the rule of law in Hungary. Nevertheless, significant shortcomings remain in force and the Hungarian Government has only partially fulfilled the requirements of the Council. In addition, the enactment process of the law was strongly criticized.

Secondary sources/doctrinal works

Hungarian Helsinki Committee, Amnesty International, Eötvös Károly Policy Institute: Assessment of Act X of 2023 on the Amendment of Certain Laws on Justice related to the Hungarian Recovery and Resilience Plan, 22 May 2023, available at: https://helsinki.hu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Assessment_of_the_Judicial_Reform_052023.pdf

Erika Farkas, András Kádár: Restoring the Rule of Law By Breaching It. Hungary's Judicial Reform and the Principle of Legality, Verfassungsblog, 10 July 2023, available at: https://verfassungsblog.de/restoring-the-rule-of-law-by-breaching-it/