Hungarian President Sulyok Removed from Office by Constitutional Amendment

Full text

Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok signed a constitutional amendment on Saturday that will remove him from office.

Sulyok had resisted months of public pressure from Prime Minister Péter Magyar, who called for the president’s resignation as part of his efforts to dismantle what he calls the “mafia” that his predecessor, Viktor Orbán, created while in office.

But after a constitutional amendment designed to remove Sulyok from office passed on Monday, the Orbán-appointed president’s legal options narrowed sharply.

“I am fulfilling my obligation under the Fundamental Law — after thoroughly weighing my legal options and my conscience,” Sulyok said in a post on social media. “At the same time, however, it is enduring proof that the fundamental values of a free society — the rule of law, democracy, and the principle of the separation of powers — have been trampled upon for the sake of political power.”

Sulyok had five days to sign the amendment, and many Hungarians — including Magyar — expected him to refuse. His alternative was to refer the amendment to Hungary’s Constitutional Court. Although Sulyok has argued that the amendment is unconstitutional because it targeted him, the court could not have actually ruled on the amendment’s constitutionality. Orbán stripped the court of that power with a 2013 amendment, leaving it able to review only procedural violations.

The amendment also reinstates a mandatory retirement age of 70 for all Constitutional Court judges, a change that will force out four sitting justices, including its controversial president, Péter Polt.

“If this could be done to the president of the republic, then tomorrow no one will be safe,” Orbán said in a post on social media. “God protect Hungary!” The former prime minister left the country earlier this week to watch the World Cup final in the U.S.

In his statement, Sulyok warned that the rule of law had ended in Hungary, and that the president “will no longer serve as any kind of check or balance.” Magyar has maintained that Sulyok himself oversaw some of the worst abuses of the rule of law under Orbán and that his removal was necessary to restore it.

“With Tamás Sulyok’s signature, the last obstacle to our joint decisions coming into effect has been removed,” Magyar said in a statement following Sulyok’s decision. “We are restoring something that the Orbán regime has tried for many years to take away from the Hungarian people: the certainty that power can be limited.”

The monthslong campaign to remove Sulyok was seen as a major political test for Magyar, who has been rushing to cement his central campaign promise to turn the page on Orbán. Although Sulyok was not a member of Orbán’s Fidesz and remained relatively unknown, he became the symbol of the party’s entrenched influence within the Hungarian government.

Márta Pardavi, co-chair of the human rights watchdog Hungarian Helsinki Committee, told POLITICO that “what Hungary needs now is people with strong integrity and democratic commitment to lead the country back to democracy and rule of law. President Sulyok did not meet these criteria.”

Sulyok is expected to leave office on Monday, with the speaker of the Hungarian parliament, Ágnes Forsthoffer, succeeding him. Tisza lawmakers submitted a resolution Friday to replace Forsthoffer as speaker ahead of Monday’s extraordinary parliamentary session.