SECOND SECTION
CASE OF VILLÁS v. HUNGARY
(Application no. 33134/21)
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
17 March 2026
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Villás v. Hungary,
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Oddný Mjöll Arnardóttir, President,
 Gediminas Sagatys,
 Juha Lavapuro, judges,
and Dorothee von Arnim, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 33134/21) against Hungary lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 18 June 2021 by a Hungarian national, Mr Szilárd Villás (“the applicant”), who was born in 1979, lives in Budapest and was represented by Mr P. Szegi, a lawyer practising in Budapest;
the decision to give notice of the complaint concerning Article 6 § 1 of the Convention to the Hungarian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Mr Z. Tallódi, of the Ministry of Justice and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application;
the parties’ observations;
the withdrawal of Mr Péter Paczolay, the judge elected in respect of Hungary, from sitting in the case (Rule 28 § 3 of the Rules of Court);
the information given to the Hungarian Government on 28 November 2025 that the case was to be assigned to a Committee;
Having deliberated in private on 17 February 2026,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns the alleged lack of impartiality of the Constitutional Court in proceedings instituted by the applicant to challenge the termination of his service of 22 years as a court bailiff. 2. According to public information emanating from the Ministry of Justice, in September 2017 the Government examined the need for a systemic reform of the court bailiff service on the initiative of Ms H., then the President of the National Judicial Office, a State agency in charge of the central administration of courts. Having endorsed her recommendations, the Government introduced various bills to the Parliament aimed at overhauling the system of court bailiffs. In particular, Bill T/7844 passed into law on 19 November 2019 as Act no. LXXXI of 2019. The Act amended certain aspects of the service of judicial employees, and included, in particular, the abolition of the status of court bailiffs as of 31 January 2020. 3. The applicant’s service as court bailiff was terminated ex lege on 31 January 2020, after he had refused to accept a substitute employment within the judiciary. 4. On 23 July 2020 the applicant submitted a constitutional complaint under section 26(2) of the Constitutional Court Act in which he challenged the constitutionality of the legal basis for the institutional reform, notably Act no. LXXXI of 2019. In support of the complaint, he filed the information provided by the Ministry of Justice (see paragraph 2 above) according to which the recommendations that underlay the reform had been made by Ms H. 5. On 23 February 2021 the Constitutional Court, sitting as a panel of five judges, found the applicant’s complaint inadmissible due to the absence of victim status. Ms H. – by then, member of the Constitutional Court – was the rapporteur of the case and the president of the panel. 6. Relying on Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, the applicant complained that the Constitutional Court panel hearing his case was not impartial because it included Ms H. who had initiated, in a previous capacity, the very legislative amendments he was challenging.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 6
Outcome: violation