The Hungarian constitutional court and the abusive constitutionalism

Abstract

As part of the paper series on the rule of law backsliding in Hungary in the past decade this article focuses on the role of the Constitutional Court, and explains the constitutional developments in Hungary, in the first part, by recalling the establishment and constitutional status of the Constitutional Court under the former Constitution before 2010 (section 1), then by outlining the constitutional and legislative background of the court-capture, and referring to the new attitudes brought by the new justices to the Court (section 2). In the second part, the changes will be illustrated with case studies by reflecting on some formative issues that are landmarks on the one hand from the viewpoint of the basis of the constitutional review, on the other hand they are explaining the forms of abusive practice and help to understand how the Court adopted itself to the expectations of the illiberal regime (section 3).