Hagyó Files

The primary purpose of this blog is to serve as a source of information on the BKV case in Budapest, Hungary. The “Hagyó Case” as it commonly known in Hungary due the main defendant, Hagyó Miklós, will be presented and hopefully discussed through this blog either in blog-style articles, more journalistic compositions, or case-related documents. The case has garnered much domestic and international attention due to the high-profile defendants who were an alleged criminal network in the midst of Hungary’s on-going transition from a repressive communist regime into a transparent democracy in today’s highly globalized stage. If you are interested and would like to follow our updates, please register via the RSS feed!

The mafia charges of billions of forints have melted

In most cases because of the absence of crime police have terminated the criminal procedures initiated after the change of administration in 2010. stipulations of international treaties. In several cases the courts were unable to find proved the accusation of the existence of some kind of mafia entity. Tax payers are to bear the 100 billion Hungarian Forints which is contested in the lawsuit connected to Sukoro investment.

Miklós Hagyó former socialist Deputy Mayor was shocked when he saw himself in a picture in a FIDESZ campaign poster on the streets. In those posters he is not illustrated in a good manner at all. Although he has been retired for 4 years and he has no intention to return to the public life. Our newspaper went to what happened with those members of the public against whose criminal procedures were initiated – not exempted from political overtones – during 2009 and 2010. Which is the present status of these procedures, is there any decision in force, the accused are released or sentenced?

INDEMNITY

We were looking for Miklós Hagyó to take a statement about how he has lived through the past years, what lesson was stabbed from his position of Deputy Mayor, what he would do in another way and what is the truth about the alleged millions carried in a Nokia box. However – via his legal representative – he said that he does not intend to say a word. “Once you’re bitten by a snake you fear the lizard as well.” – reflected András Kádár attorney-at-law why his defendant rejects to comment. It is known from Hagyó that he lives secluded in the embrace of his family. After his arrest his physical condition was broken down, he lost 37 kg weight. Now he has been waiting for the end of the criminal proceedings regarding the BKV case. Miklós Hagyó was arrested on 14th new Parliament, almost at the same time when his former socialist party co-‘s took their oath. Although he had indicated – via his legal representative – to the authority weeks ago that it is his full intention to cooperate with them, special police force knocked on his house’s door. He opened the door then the special force pushed him against the wall, handcuffed and led him in the crossfire of the media. The video had been shown for weeks by the public media. Meanwhile Hagyó’s condition was getting worse and worse in the correctional institution, he spent more than 4 months in a guard house where the available space was 3,52 square meter per person, furniture included. Then he spent 4 months in another place where the ratio was 4,7 square meter per person. His lawyers wanted him to be placed to home guard however they also referred to and emphasized a procedural anomaly: the authorities failed to determine the real reason of the arrest. Also the European Court of Human Rights did not find everything fine since the Court judged EUR 20,000 indemnity in favor of Miklós Hagyó in 2013. As we know Hungary has already paid this amount to him. 

The Fidesz had been curing – It could have been prevent the lot of penalty

Really it should have been only this, and then the Hungarian tax-payers shouldn’t have to pay the penalty damages because of the case transferences? It’s a public joke.

We can start this story from far away, but there is no sense for the enumeration. They will do this a few years later on the law schools, when probably the purpose which allusive the special criminal cases and which is supported by the 2/3 government will be a curriculum in there.


This made it happen that Tünde Handó, who was newly elected president of the National Judicial Office in the January of 2012, could appoint court which are equal in scope but it’s diverge than the general cognizance courts in politically tender cases, like the Sukoró’s plot change, the BKV case, or the trial of György Hunvald. The National Judiciary Office had the same charge from lot of sides, that they appoint these kinds of cases according a sin which countryside court has a stricter or more extenuate judgment, according to the earlier cases.

Let’s go to Kecskemét

The BKV case should had been trial in the Budapest Court, but Tünde Handó appointed it to the Kecskemét Court in the February of 2012, with the allude to the workloads of the other court. Against the decision the concerned people couldn’t make an appeal but they made a constitutional complaint and they asked for suspend of the process. All of this didn’t block the process, the appointed judge started the case in the Kecskemét Court. She questioned all the defendants and almost all of the witnesses. Roughly after 50 days of hearings December of 2013 came, when the Constitutional Court in their decision established that the laws about the case transferences were repealed by the Parliament and it’s come up against the Basic Law and against the international rules. 

We had a selfie with Hagyó on the Subway line 4!

Today Budapest is celebrating the Subway line 4 with a surprising party exemption. The whole media, competent and amateurs, oranges and red, passengers and BKV workers exalt the final form of the gigantic project.


And true what is true, it’s just enough to go down to one-one station to be completely floored for its own world and for the visions from the forms, shapes, devices and surfaces. I1m not going to even gush more about it, see it if you can.

We thought that we will ask a person on the presentation day, who was concerned in a more deeply way into the project just to cut the strip. Thus through his lawyer we contacted Miklós Hagyó former socialist deputy lord mayor, who – although didn’t cut a stripe today – was responsible for the investment during his office period and (since then it turned out that wrongly, without a reason, with fake cause) he was in pre-trial detention for it.


Miklós Hagyó in the beginning – kept himself for his muteness in the last 4 years – didn’t want to declare, however he called us back during the day to send a short message to everyone who was concerned with the building operations. He did it in this way without any verbal comment:




„From the people who created the idea to the person who pull the last screw, we, thousands of Hungarian people can be proud and we can thank to God that a big building operation like this came true uniquely in the world without any accident.”

They can start the Hagyó case from the beginning

There is still no owner for the notorious crimes, for the BKV scandal, for the 15 billion MVM misappropriations or for the Sukoró case. All of these were started in the countryside, but after the decision from the Constitutional Court about the case transferences, the cases had been stopped, because the courts in the countryside didn’t keep being competent anymore. 

The special cases can be stopped for maximum 3 months without consequences. By this time we already overstepped the 3 months round, so it seems like that now it doesn’t matter anymore that what court will be the competent, they have to start over all the special cases.

On 13th of June, 2012 the criminal suit of Miklós Hagyó, former deputy lord mayor and his fellows started on the Kecskemét Tribunal. Photo: Huszti István / Index

The arguments about the unclaimed notorious cases came so far for now that – it seems like – that it sure that they have to start them over, independently from that fact that in which court will the cases continue. These are those difficult, big cases what the transferred to countryside court because of the workload of the Budapest’s court: such as the BKV scandal which was transferred to Kecskemét, or the former MVM leader, István Kocsis’s 15 billion misappropriation case which started in Kaposvár. The status of these cases fell over when the Constitutional Court in the beginning of December said that the former law which was the basis of the case transferences was unconstitutional and it had been already repealed. First it said that the decision of the Constitutional Court doesn’t influence the pending cases because the Constitutional Court rejected the proposal when they asked the extermination of the dockets of the transferences. 

Hungary, An Election in Question, Part 5

This is the final post of a new series from my Princeton colleague Kim Lane Scheppele, head of Princeton’s Law and Public Affairs Program.

Hungary: An Election in Question
Part V: The Unequal Campaign
Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton
24 February 2014

Kim Lane Scheppele

Officially, the election campaign in Hungary starts 50 days before an election, so the race began in earnest on 15 February for the 6 April election. Once the campaign period starts in Hungary, special rules ensure that all parties are treated equally.

But as Anatole France once said, “In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal loaves of bread.”

We’ve already seen how the new system in Hungary was designed to push opposition parties into an uncomfortable alliance and to require they win by a substantial margin to win at all. And we’ve seen how the system of minority and foreign voting has opened the doors for Fidesz voters while closing them to those who would vote for opposition parties.

Not surprisingly, the rules for the campaign period itself also have a similar logic.

How Did Hungary’s Election Become a Circus?

By DANNY HAKIMMARCH 1, 2014


BUDAPEST — THE most visible poster on the streets here is not the one advertising the Deep Purple concert at the Papp Laszlo Sportarena. And it’s not the one for “Balkan Kobra,” a theatrical comedy featuring a stubbly hero sporting tight jeans and a Kalashnikov. And it’s definitely not the one for the Budapest Dance Festival.

Instead, it’s the one that shows three or four guys wearing neckties standing in a police lineup, alongside a clown. In one of the more ubiquitous versions of the poster, two of the men are former left-wing prime ministers of Hungary. A third is Attila Mesterhazy, president of the country’s Socialist Party and a current candidate for prime minister in the coming election in April. The fourth is Miklos Hagyo, the former left-wing deputy mayor of Budapest, who is currently the subject of a corruption trial.



An ad from a pro-ruling-party group features opposition politicians, a clown and the tag line “They Don’t Deserve Another Chance.” Credit Akos Stiller for The New York Times

The men, and the clown, appear above the slogan “They Don’t Deserve Another Chance.”

Given that political advertising has been sharply and abruptly curtailed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his ruling Fidesz Party, the pre-eminence of a political ad — on billboards, lampposts and the sides of buses — might seem surprising. But Fidesz, which has been widely criticized as taking Hungary in an autocratic direction since taking power in 2010, has become adept at controlling the message. It has rewritten the state’s Constitution, come to dominate all branches of government and held increasing sway over the news media. Meanwhile, according to the International Monetary Fund, Hungary’s economic output is not expected to return to 2008 levels until 2017.