Never-ending exception

Abstract

On the evening of 3 May, justice minister Judit Varga submitted the 10th amendment of the Fundamental Law of Hungary. On her social media accounts she stated, that the ‘Russian-Ukrainian war has resulted in a humanitarian situation not seen since the Second World War and has also changed the economic outlook in Europe … To meet and counter these challenges our country must ensure the capacity to develop an effective and rapid national response’. The amendment aims to rewrite the current rules of Article 53 of the constitution, which allows the government to declare a state of danger (and rule by decree as it did during the last two years) in the event of a natural or industrial disaster endangering lives and property, or to mitigate the consequences thereof. According to the proposed new rules, the government will also be able to declare this kind of emergency ‘in the event of armed conflict, war or humanitarian catastrophe in a neighbouring country’.