14 comments

  2. Sandor :

    Unfortunately the picture doesn’t lead to a link. Could you please post the link too?
    Thanks

    There is nothing wrong with the video. Just click on it but as I mentioned the actual hearing starts only around 40:00. And make sure that the volume is all the way up.

  3. Sandor :
    Unfortunately the picture doesn’t lead to a link. Could you please post the link too?
    Thanks

    Sandor, it worked for me. Just click and it plays. If I post the youtube link, by default on this blog it would show the same screen. Go on youtube and enter: The Trajectory of Democracy: Why Hungary Matters . THis is the title of the video.

  5. Hungarian government’s debt

    2010. May 19,933 billion (at Fidesz takeover)

    2011. Feb 21,630 billion + 2,946 (nationalized private retirement)= 24,576

    Increase of national debt in the past 33 months= 23.3%

  7. I think (although I am not a legal scholar) the most significant part of Prof Scheppele’s extended testimony is this:

    “This “magic two-thirds” has enabled Fidesz to make all of its constitutional changes in a formally legal manner. Only one barrier remained: In 1995, under a prior two-thirds government, the old constitution was amended to require a four-fifths vote of the Parliament before any new constitutional drafting process could begin. One month into its term, Fidesz used its two-thirds vote to amend the constitution to remove the four-fifths requirement.”

    This makes the entire Fidesz legal construction of the “Basic Law” unlawful, therefore null and void.

  8. tappanch :
    I think (although I am not a legal scholar) the most significant part of Prof Scheppele’s extended testimony is this:
    “This “magic two-thirds” has enabled Fidesz to make all of its constitutional changes in a formally legal manner. Only one barrier remained: In 1995, under a prior two-thirds government, the old constitution was amended to require a four-fifths vote of the Parliament before any new constitutional drafting process could begin. One month into its term, Fidesz used its two-thirds vote to amend the constitution to remove the four-fifths requirement.”
    This makes the entire Fidesz legal construction of the “Basic Law” unlawful, therefore null and void.

    This puzzled me too – how can an amemdment that specifies a 4/5 majority be undone by a 2/3 majority?

    Either this was a daft bit of legislation, as it still allows the constitution to be replaced on a 2/3 majority, or else, as tappanch suggests, Fidesz have broken the law.

    If the latter is true, then is there anything the EU can do to overturn the new Fidesz constitution?

  10. On the one hand, Fidesz claimed that the 4/5 requirement had expired in 1998, on the other hand, they were not completely sure, so they explicitly removed it with a 2/3 law after 2010.

  12. Pingback: Kim Lane Scheppele Misleading on Hungary’s Legal Reforms

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