The Beginning of The Case Against Miklós

The first trial of the criminal proceeding against Miklós Hagyó and his partners was at the Tribunal of Kecskemét on the 13th of June in 2012. A very important circumstance in the case is the impartial court of Kecskemét and its appointment by politicians connected to the two-thirds governing Fidesz.  Within this document I summarize my curiosities about the impartiality of the Kecskemét court and the appointment process of the Hagyó case to the Kecskemét court through a few simply stated questions.

Firstly, how could the Hagyó Case, as it has become known, be transferred to the Kecskemét Court?  On December 31st, 2010 the Parliament accepted the temporary provisions of the Constitution, and they came to effect on the 1st of January 2011. Of the new provisions in the fresh constitution the first section of the 28th article permits the transfer of cases:

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

With this power clearly stated, Tünde Handó, the President of the National Judicial Office (NJO) and Szájer Jószef‘s wife – Szájer is one of the members of the European Parliament and a former Fidesz politician – appointed the court in Kecskemét to negotiate the case of the Budapest Public Transport Company.  On the 16^th of January 2012, one day after the announcement of Hagyó’s innocence in a forgery case, the Tribunal of the Capital City notified they would transfer two of their cases.  According to the Tribunal this occurred because they have 267 cases of greater significance – because of overloading.

Tünde Handó’s powers as the President of the NJO have been highly scrutinized amongst the European and American communities.  She alone has the power to pick the judges, to fire or transfer them, create court rules, and approximately another 60 powers.  She alone controlled the location of the Hagyó case.  According to Transparency International Hungary, the Association for Human Rights, the Venice Commission and the Hungarian Helsinki Committee the capabilities of her position are not compatible with democracy.

My second question: why has this case been transferred to Kecskemét?  In other words, what is the difference between the Kecskemét Court and others?  The answer is the political partiality, which is evinced by the court of Kecskemét; we can say “it is evinced through paper”.  According to a piece published on the New York Times’ website, “the president of the county court there (who will assign the case to a specific judge) was one of the few court leaders in the country who did not sign a petition to the government protesting its judicial reforms.”  In January 2012 the Chief Justice Péter Darák and many leaders of court (including the president of the court of Kecskemét) took part in a secret meeting in Balatonőszöd.  On March 7^th, 2012 the judge – who is the son of the former Fidesz Deputy Major of the city – informed the media about the case schedule of Miklós Hagyó in the court of Kecskemét.  In addition to these Fidesz connected people and events, the schedule of the case seems to suit their upcoming campaign.  According to the notice of the court, the first hearing occurs before the summer break and it will end in 18-24 months. So the first verdict will be proclaimed during the campaign of the next parliamentary and / or local governmental elections.

Perhaps another type of politics was the reasoning behind transferring the Hagyó case to Kecskemét.  Tünde Handó, won 4 percentage points when the Court of Kecskemét had been appointed by her to negotiate the Hagyó; the rate of the important cases is 60 % in Budapest and 56 % in Kecskemét.  However, the official reason remains the equal distribution of the cases between the courts.

Source: http://thehagyocase.wordpress.com/