Hungary votes on constitutional amendment that allows for dismissal of president and Constitutional Court

The Hungarian Parliament voted tonight on a constitutional amendment that allows for the dismissal of the President of Hungary and the President of the Constitutional Court.

The 17th constitutional amendment amending the Hungarian Constitution has been adopted. The amendment, which was submitted three weeks ago by Prime Minister Péter Magyar under the name "Operation Purgatory", concerns the removal of Tamás Šujók from the position of President of Hungary, the removal of the President of the Constitutional Court, Péter Polt, and three other constitutional judges.

The constitutional amendment, among other things, also limits the term of office of MPs to 12 years (or three terms), which means that neither the president of Fidesz, former Prime Minister Viktor Orban, nor most of the current opposition MPs, will be able to be elected to parliament anymore.

The parliamentary groups of Fidesz and KDNP boycotted today's parliamentary session and the vote on the constitutional amendment. Gergely Gujas resigned as head of the Fidesz parliamentary group in protest. The right-wing opposition parliamentary party Our Homeland (Mi Hazánk) abstained during the vote on the constitutional amendment, reports the Hungarian portal Telex.

"We would be betraying the Hungarian nation if we did not adopt the amendments to the Constitution, because it is the basic document of the 'Cosa Nostra' built by Fidesz-KDNP," the prime minister said at a parliamentary session today.

According to him, the Tisa party won a clear two-thirds majority in the parliamentary elections on April 12, i.e. a mandate to dismantle the current Orban system in Hungary. He stated that the recently adopted constitutional amendment "ends the era of destroying Fidesz" and begins the creation of a new Constitution in which they want to include all citizens of Hungary.

Fidesz: The end of constitutional democracy and the beginning of autocracy

For the Fidesz party, the adoption of the constitutional amendment means "the end of constitutional democracy and the beginning of autocracy in Hungary," reports N1.

The now former head of the Fidesz parliamentary group, Gergely Gujas, stated that Tisa, for political reasons, wants to remove the Hungarian president, "decapitate" the Constitutional Court and limit democratic elections by preventing more than half of the current opposition representatives in Hungary from participating in the next elections.

During the election campaign, Peter Magyar promised that public officials, whom he called "Orban's puppets", would be removed from office, and in his first speech as Prime Minister, he called on the President of Hungary to resign, Telex reminds.

He pointed out that the removal of Tamás Šujok is necessary because he does not express the unity of the nation, as he "blindly served" Orbán's government and never opposed him in public on important social issues.

Tamás Šujok rejected the prime minister's call to resign and has launched a "counterattack" in recent weeks. Due to what he described as "political pressure" from the prime minister, he has turned to the Constitutional Court and the Venice Commission for assistance, seeking their opinion on a constitutional amendment.

Hungarian: We did not get a two-thirds majority to give Hungary new masters

Although Fidesz insists that the adopted constitutional amendment dismantled the rule of law and legal certainty, and that "it opened the door to dictatorship" in Hungary, the Hungarian Prime Minister notes that this amendment "does not give authority to any new parliamentary majority to replace leaders it does not like at will and to appoint its own people in the place of old party soldiers."

"Today's decision gives us the authority to end a serious and unsustainable situation once and for all. We did not get the two-thirds majority to give Hungary new masters," said Péter Magyar.

The President of Hungary has five days to sign amendments to the Constitution, which will lead to his removal.

The constitutional changes can only come into force if they are signed by the Hungarian president. Tamás Šujok has five days to do so, starting from today's adoption of the amendments in parliament.

He has the right by law to refer the 17th constitutional amendment to the Constitutional Court, but this body can only examine whether the procedures were violated in this case during the amendment of the Constitution, but cannot decide on the content of the amendment itself. It is precisely this control over the content that Fidesz took away from the Constitutional Court back in 2013.

Football is more important to Orban than constitutional changes

Let us add that former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán decided to travel to America for the World Cup at this crucial moment for himself and his party. He also did not appear at the protest on Thursday in front of the Sándor Presidential Palace, organized by his Fidesz party, against the constitutional amendment, which was adopted today in the Hungarian parliament, according to the Hungarian portal Telex in its article.