Hungary’s 2010 election brought to power a Fidesz parliamentary supermajority led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. In just two years, they have fundamentally changed the constitutional order of Hungary. The current government now has very few checks on its own power, but the new constitutional order permits the governing party to lodge its loyalists in crucial long-term positions with veto power over what future governments might do. As a result, the Fidesz government has achieved a remarkable constitutional feat: giving themselves maximum room for maneuver while simultaneously entrenching their power, their policies and their people for the foreseeable future.
About the Authors
Miklós Bánkuti
Miklós Bánkuti is senior research specialist at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School.
Kim Lane Scheppele is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University.
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A number of countries in East-Central Europe are facing a grave crisis of constitutional democracy. As their governments seek to undermine the institutional limits on their power, constitutional courts have…
