Apathetic Legal Lords and Other Judicial Shenanigins

In November the online legal forum JogiForum.hu published a study by law student Éva Kádár on the Hungarian Constitutional Court’s (CC) involvement thus far in the trial of the Budapest Public Transport Company (BKV).  Kádár focuses specifically on the CC’s seemingly apathetic stance on the possible violations of basic legal rights according to the European Commission on Human Rights and the controversial creation of an office which can now exercise its unbridled will upon the Hungarian Judiciary.

The analytical study translated as “The BKV Case – From the Scope of Basic Legal Rights” refers to the 2011 amendment to freshly implemented constitution known as the Fundamental Law of Hungary.  The amendment, which became Article 28 section 1, states,

“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.”

In other words, the President of the National Judicial Office (PNJO) oversees which cases go to which courts and has the power to redistribute cases to other tribunals of equal prowess in order to ensure a quick trial and avoid one courthouse becoming overloaded with too many cases.  This law is certainly useful and appropriate with regard to a speedy judicial hearing, but some have already found flaws with its connection to the PNJO.

The Venice Commission, a constitutional law advisory body to the Council of Europe, has strongly criticized the creation of the PNJO citing that it contradicts European judicial norms and the office jeopardizes the insurance of a fair trial.  And the Venice Commission is not the only organization which has scrutinized the Hungarian Judiciary under the Law, which replaced the old constitution in April 2011.  According to Transparency International Hungary, the Association for Human Rights and the Hungarian Helsinki Committee the capabilities of the PNJO are not compatible with democracy.

So how is the PNJO undemocratic and why is this singular office so controversial?

The President of the NJO alone has the ability to appoint judges, to fire or transfer them, manage court rules as s/he sees fit, and approximately another 60 powers.  With regard to Article 28 the PNJO alone controlled the location of the BKV case.

You may be wondering by now who occupies this Hungarian judicial throne?

That has been another hot topic, and a frequently criticized one from those following the BKV case.  The current President of the NJO is Handó Tünde, the wife of the former FIDESZ representative who drafted the new Hungarian constitution which was passed by the FIDESZ-majority parliament.  Once the PNJO was created through the new constitution and filled by Handó, her husband resigned from his position as MP, but retained his position as a European parliament representative for Hungary.

Kádár concludes that the BKV case, which has been commonly known as the Hagyó Case after the primary defendant Miklós Hagyó, has been tainted if not completed soiled for numerous reasons: the unchecked power from the PNJO, Handó’s immediate ties to the ruling party (who happens to be the major opposition to Hagyó and his MSZP associates), and the fact that the BKV case was transferred from the Budapest Tribunal to the city of Kecskemét, a FIDESZ stronghold, under the pretense of Article 28 although the caseload of the Budapest court was only 4% larger than that in Kecskemét.

Finally, Kádár wonders where the CC has been.  The CC is the supreme legal body in Hungary; the equivalent of the Supreme Court in the United States or the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.  According to her report, Hagyó and his defense team appealed the case transfer to Kecskemét and the CC, at the time of report, had remained very silent about the matter.  Since then, the CC rejected the appeal despite the cries from the broader European community.


Source: http://thehagyocase.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/apathetic-legal-lords-and-other-judicial-shenanigins/