page_title: Second Orbán Government
section_title: International Criticism of Fourth amendment of the Constitution
hierarchical_section_title: Second Orbán Government / History / 2013 / International Criticism of Fourth amendment of the Constitution
caption_attribution_description: English: Professor Kim Lane Scheppele in October 2016
context_page_description: The second government of Viktor Orbán or the Government of National Cooperation was the Government of Hungary from 29 May 2010 to 6 June 2014. Orbán formed his second cabinet after his party, Fidesz won the outright majority in the first round on April 11, with the Fidesz-KDNP alliance winning 206 seats, including 119 individual seats. In the final result, they won 263 seats, of which 173 are individual seats. Fidesz held 227 of these seats, giving it an outright majority in the National Assembly by itself.
context_section_description: On 1 March 2013, Princeton University international constitutional law scholar, Hungary-specialist and political activist Kim Lane Scheppele wrote in a blog entry that the Hungarian ruling party's supermajority is re-introducing in one "mega-amendment" multiple constitutional amendments which had been introduced before and nullified by the Constitutional Court or changed at the insistence of European bodies. In his opinion the new constitutional mega-amendment again puts an end to the independence of the judiciary, brings universities under still more governmental control, opens the door to political prosecutions, criminalizes homelessness, makes the recognition of religious groups dependent on their cooperation with the government and weakens human rights guarantees across the board. In addition, the constitution will now buffer the government from further financial sanctions by permitting it to pass on all fines for noncompliance with the constitution or with European law to the Hungarian population as special taxes, not payable by the normal state budget. The mega-amendment annuls all of the decisions made by the Court before 1 January 2012 so that they have no legal effect. Henceforth no longer can anyone in the country – neither the Constitutional Court, nor the ordinary courts, nor human rights groups nor ordinary citizens – rely on the Court’s prior string of rights-protecting decisions.
  On 5 March 2013, Michael Link, the (liberal) undersecretary in the German Foreign Ministry, in "Hungary must remain a country of the law,"  called on Hungary "to demonstrate that the country has an effective separation of power between the legislative and the judicial." 
  On 6 March 2013, Europe’s main human rights watchdog, Council of Europe President Thorbjorn Jagland (social democrat), said that the amendments set to be voted on next week by Hungarian lawmakers may be incompatible with European legal principles and asked the government to postpone the approval of a series of constitutional amendments, so legal experts can review the changes.
  On 8 March 2013, the government of the USA raised its concerns both about the content of the proposed amendments "as they could threaten the principles of institutional independence and checks and balances that are the hallmark of democratic governance" and about the process by which they were to be accepted: "[The USA] "urges the Government of Hungary and the Parliament to ensure that the process of considering amendments to the constitution demonstrates respect for the rule of law and judicial review, openness to the views of other stakeholders across Hungarian society, and continuing receptiveness to the expertise of the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission."  On that same day, in a letter to the European commission, Guido Westerwelle, the German foreign minister, and counterparts in Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland called for the European Union to be given new powers allowing it to freeze EU budget funds to a member state in breach of Europe's "fundamental values." Likewise on the same day, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso  expressed concerns about the government over the amendment vote in Hungary’s parliament the following week to change the constitution, arguing that it contravenes EU rules in areas such as the judiciary.
  On the 11th of March, "Hungary's parliament, dominated by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party, adopted changes to the country's constitution on Monday despite warnings from the European Union and the U.S. government that the changes could weaken Hungary's democracy. The legislation was supported by 265 lawmakers in the 386-seat chamber, with 11 votes against and 33 abstentions."
  Critiques have also been made in the official working documents of the European Parliament and by the Venice Commission on Hungary.
  The June 2013 report of the  European Commission on the Hungarian Constitution, the Tavares Report urged the Hungarian authorities "to implement as swiftly as possible all the measures the European Commission as the guardian of the tre
caption: Kim Lane Scheppele
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