Controversial emergency laws have been described by some as creating EU’s first dictatorship
The Hungarian government plans to bring to an end controversial emergency legislation, which some critics described as creating the EU’s first dictatorship.
Hungary’s justice minister, Judit Varga, announced on Tuesday that she would submit legislation to parliament imminently that would bring an end to the so-called “state of danger” on 20 June. While in force, it has allowed the country’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, to rule by decree, and had no fixed cut-off date.
“We expect those who have attacked us with unjust political accusations to apologise for leading a slander campaign,” she wrote on Facebook, adding that emergency coronavirus legislation was being brought to an end in Hungary earlier than in many other European countries.
Parliament, where Orbán’s Fidesz party holds a two-thirds majority, gave the prime minister the power to rule by decree at the end of March. The opposition had offered to support the measures if the government included a sunset clause or time limit, but Orbán refused.
“It was part of the government strategy for the pandemic to create and provoke direct confrontation with the opposition,” Budapest’s mayor, Gergely Karácsony, said last week. Karácsony beat Orbán’s candidate in an election last October.
In April, the European parliament approved a statement that said Hungary’s measures were “incompatible with European values”, and the European commission vice-president Vĕra Jourová described the laws as “very disturbing”. The US rights organisation Freedom House classified Hungary as a “hybrid regime” this year, placing the country somewhere between a democracy and an autocracy.
Hungarian government officials have seized on some incorrect international reporting that claimed that parliament had been suspended, saying all international criticism of the measures was “fake news”. Although the measures are likely to end by the end of next month, Orbán’s critics say this should not obscure the damage done, which follows a decade of gradual erosion of democratic norms in Hungary.
More than 100 decrees have been issued since April, some of which appeared to have little direct relevance to fighting coronavirus, such as those that stripped opposition-led municipalities of decision-making power and financial resources.
A separate measure also included potential prison sentences for spreading false information. Although no cases have yet come to court under the decree, police have launched more than 100 investigations and in some cases have hauled citizens in for questioning over critical Facebook posts.
The emergency laws “still have a month to go, and we also don’t know which measures will remain in place after the state of danger is ended”, said Péter Krekó, who runs the Political Capital thinktank in Budapest.
During the past two months, parliament has also passed a number of controversial legislative bills in the normal way, including one that strips transgender people of legal recognition.
Varga said the emergency legislation had allowed the government “to act quickly and effectively against the pandemic”. As of Tuesday, Hungary has reported a total of 3,771 coronavirus cases and 499 deaths, low numbers in comparison with western European countries. Orbán implemented an early lockdown, which in recent weeks has been gradually eased.