Constitutional Court - Kecskemét

With the new Hungarian Constitution, the Foundational Law as it has been called, came amendments to the structure of its protectors and legal interpreters, the Constitutional Court.  Of those amendments, one in particular has shown its presence and capabilities, specifically within one high-profile case, that concerning Miklós Hagyó. 

I am referring to, of course, the 28th article which, for simplicity, can be termed the "overloading" article.  For the purposes of clarity and comprehension, though, here is an accurate translation of the summarized 1st section of the 28th article:

Article XXVIII, section (1) to preserve the foundational right for judicial decision in reasonable time, in the event of an unresolvable imbalance within a court, the President of the National Judicial Office (NJO) can assign distinct competency to a court of equal power in any case.

In other words, the NJO President, currently Tünde Handó, can move a case from court A to court B if she thinks court A has too many obligations at a given time.  This provision to article 28 was accepted by Parliament on the 31st of December 2010, and it was effected the next day, January 1st, 2011.  Next, I would like to address the promotion of Tünde Handó and her particulars in relation to the Constitutional Court. 

First came the removal of András Baka, the former Hungarian Supreme Court Chief, who publicly disapproved of the judicial reforms under the Orbán government.  He called the judicial overhaul a centralization that was "unprecedented" in all of Europe.  This, coming from a man who sat for 17 years on the European Court of Justice for Human Rights in Strasbourg, is quite a statement. It had been said of Baka that he supported a judicial reform, but rejected the proposal to change the retirement age from 70 to 62.  Especially in a time when retirement ages are being raised in other industries and in many other countries.  To him, it may have seemed that nearly 300 perfectly capable judges were going to be replaced with more politically favorable ones. 

On December 13th, 2011 came the promotions of Tünde Handó and Péter Darák.  Handó became the NJO President and Darák was Baka's replacement for the newly dubbed Kúria.  Why are these promotions noteworthy?  Handó lacked the proper administrative experience to behold such a position, she is a close friend of Premier Orbán and his wife, with whom she has been seen attending concerts, and Tünde is the wife of the man who is credited with drafting the new "Fundamental Law", József Szájer - Fidesz European parliamentary member and one of the founders of Fidesz.  Darák, an associate professor who teaches tax law at ELTE's Law School who doesn't have such strong connections to Fidesz or Orbán, has been heavily critiqued for accepting the position under such circumstances.  With pawns in their proper place, an assault can commence.

On January 15th, 2012 Miklós Hagyó, a well-known and powerful MSZP figure, was acquitted of forgery at the Tribunal of the Capital City.  Certainly this was a promising sign for Hagyó as the allegations of bribery, embezzlement, and involvement in criminal organization still awaited a proper trial.  The very next day, January 16th, 2012, the same court announced that it would be transferring Hagyó's case because of 267 other cases that held more importance.  That is quite curious, this topic of priority and importance, considering the accusations against Miklós are quite serious; the prosecution is seeking a prison sentence of at least 20 years.  Nevertheless, the case has been transferred to Kecskemét. 

If you recall from the "overloading" article, the only person with the power to execute such a decision is, of course, Tünde Handó.  And, her only supervisor, Kúria Chief Péter Darák whose sense of morality is clearly questionable, has remained quiet.  Interestingly enough, the organization whose sole purpose is to uphold the integrity of the Hungarian Constitution and determine empowered individuals and organizations operate within that integrity, the Constitutional Court, has yet to make its opinion public on the transference of the Hagyó case to Kecskemét.