Hungarian parliament votes to remove Orbán-appointed president Sulyok

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The Hungarian Parliament passed a sweeping constitutional amendment Monday that will oust the country’s president Tamás Sulyok and Constitutional Court president Péter Polt.

The law is part of efforts by Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s Tisza party to turn the page on over a decade of rule by the now-ousted Fidesz party, to which Magyar claims that Sulyok and Polt are loyal.

“Whenever he has had to choose between constitutional principles and the interests of Fidesz, Tamás Sulyok has time and again chosen the interests of Fidesz, and continues to do so to this day,” Magyar said in a speech to Parliament on Monday.

The amendment passed with a 139-6 margin after Fidesz and its allied KDNP party boycotted Monday’s vote. Sulyok will have five days to sign the amendment into law; if he does not, Magyar said he would impeach Sulyok in Parliament.

The 17th amendment to the Hungarian constitution fulfills one of Magyar’s key campaign promises: Undoing what he calls the “mafia” that his predecessor Viktor Orbán created during his 16 years in office. The president has fiercely defended his position, telling POLITICO in an interview that he is independent, and that forcing his removal would spark a “constitutional crisis.”

The reform also introduces a 12-year term limit for lawmakers and establishes a National Asset Recovery and Protection Office to prosecute corruption.

The law will now go to the president’s own desk for his signature. Sulyok’s other option is to send the amendment to the country’s Constitutional Court — which the watchdog Hungarian Helsinki Committee says Orbán packed with loyalists during his 16-year rule. But that route would offer only a narrow review: the court can rule only on procedural concerns, not on whether the legislation itself is unconstitutional.

And Hungary’s top court has already once passed on a chance to intervene in the matter.

In June, Sulyok asked the court to preemptively evaluate the legality of any “person-specific legislation” that would result in his removal from office. Seven constitutional judges recused themselves, citing “personal and direct involvement in the matter,” making it impossible for the court to hear the petition.

The amendment also reimposes a mandatory retirement age of 70 for all Constitutional Court judges, a move that would result in the removal of four current justices, including Polt, the court’s president.

When asked in June whether he would sign an amendment removing him from power, Sulyok told POLITICO, “I can never say for certain in advance whether I will sign a law or not.”

On Monday morning, Magyar accused Orbán’s Fidesz party of preemptively prohibiting Sulyok from signing the amendment, saying that “Fidesz has shifted to direct control in the Sándor Palace,” referring to the office of the president. Sulyok denied Magyar’s claims on Monday, saying that Magyar is seeking “to manipulate public opinion and exert pressure on the President’s autonomous decision” of whether to sign the amendment.

Sulyok, who previously served as president of the Constitutional Court under Orbán, was lifted from relative obscurity when the former prime minister appointed him president in 2024. He is one of the most unpopular presidents in the country’s post-Cold War history, largely because of his association with Orbán.

“In a few weeks, Mr. President, Hungary will have a new President of the Republic,” Magyar said.