Hungary’s National Assembly has elected Tamás Sulyok as the President of the Constitutional Court and also voted for four new members of the special court that primarily makes judicial review of the acts of the Parliament. Sulyok (pictured above in the middle), the former Vice President of the Constitutional Court, has received 131 “yes” votes and a single “no” vote to replace former head Barnabás Lenkovics, whose mandate expired in April 2016.
At its meeting held before the vote the Justice Committee of the Hungarian Parliament heard and endorsed all the four new members of the Constitutional Court:
Former supreme court judge Ildikó Hörcher Marosi (pictured right in the middle), said at the hearing of the committee that Hungary’s Supreme Court (Kúria) and the Constitutional Court should engage in more intensive dialogue and “conflict in the air” should be defused, which is why better communication would be helpful. The constitutional court should not “teach” judges of the general courts about the law, which “they already know”, she said. Rather, they should be given constitutional guidelines but then “allowed to deliberate and rule in the cases assigned to them”.
Constitutional law professor at Budapest’s Péter Pázmány Catholic University Balázs Schanda (pictured left in the middle), another new member, called for “common sense” and a human approach to the highest levels of legal practice. Concepts such as environmental protection, the family and language are the unwritten precursors to a democratic state, he argued.
Former green ombudsman Marcel Szabó (pictured left), argued for the widest possible transparency on projects related to nuclear energy and noted that the constitutional court played a vital role in setting clear definitions concerning a country’s international legal obligations.
The fourth new member, Attila Horváth (pictured right), a history of law professor at the Catholic University, who is author of a new national declaration to be added to the preamble of Hungary’s basic law, said it was important to apply the timeless, rational principles of Hungary’s “historical constitution” which are still valid today.
via MTI photos: Tibor Illyés – MTI