The Hungarian judges try to explain things away

Dissatisfaction with the Hungarian judiciary has been growing in the last couple of years. Earlier complaints usually focused on the inconsistency of decisions: different judges came up with opposite verdicts in virtually identical cases. Or that on appeal the judge of the appellate court reached entirely different conclusions from those of the first judge. In the last two years the law-abiding citizens who are horrified at the behavior of a fairly easily defined group on the streets of Budapest have been noticing a certain reluctance of the courts to punish people for acts that ordinary citizens consider to be criminal. Yesterday’s decision reached at summary proceedings (gyorsított eljárás) really was the last straw. People are by now convinced that the Hungarian court system is defending the criminals and that the members of the Hungarian judiciary have a political agenda. And let’s face it, there have been several cases where the courts’ inconsistencies are politically suspect. When demonstrators threw eggs at Gábor Demszky, SZDSZ mayor of Budapest, the court decided that a public figure like Demszky must suffer such acts; they are simply expressions of some people’s contrary political opinion. However, when a similar situation occurred in the case of the Fidesz mayor of Esztergom, suddenly egg throwing became a different matter. The egg throwers were punished.

Until now every time I heard spokesmen of either the courts or the prosecutor’s office talk about controversial cases they always defended the decision, however implausible it sounded to the layperson. They always had a complete explanation for anything the members of the Hungarian judiciary did. However, there seems to be a slight change in the attitude most likely as a result of the outcry that followed yesterday’s verdict.

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