As of March 20, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government was poised to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — subject to an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for alleged crimes against humanity in Gaza — at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Budapest, in direct defiance of Hungary’s still-active treaty obligations under the Rome …
Leonardo Puleo, Ramona Coman, “Explaining Judges’ Opposition When Judicial Independence Is Undermined: Insights from Poland, Romania, and Hungary.” Democratization, vol. 31, no. 1 (2023): 47–69. Summary: Over the past decade, governing parties in Central and Eastern Europe have dismantled liberal democracy, violating the rule of law and limiting the power of judges. This article examines …
Gábor Halmai, Ágnes Kovács. “All Quiet in the Judiciary: Low Voice of Hungarian Judges and the Role of European Courts.” In Freedom of Expression of Judges: European and National Perspectives. Edited by Federica Casaroca, Mohor Fajdiga, and Madalina Moraru, pp. 79-100. London: Routledge, 2025. Summary: Hungary has received international attention in recent years for being …
David M. Driesen, The Specter of Dictatorship: Judicial Enabling of Presidential Power. Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 2021. Summary: In The Specter of Dictatorship, David Driesen analyzes the chief executive’s role in the democratic decline of Hungary, Poland, and Turkey and argues that an insufficiently constrained presidency is one of the most important systemic threats to …
Etienne Hanelt and Attila Vincze,“Managing Courts In Competitive Authoritarian Regimes: Co-Optation, Repression And Resistance In Hungary.” Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft (2025): 1-20. Summary: This chapter investigates how attorneys, particularly judges, navigate judicial backsliding in Hungary’s competitive authoritarian regime. Despite formal guarantees of judicial independence, the government has implemented strategic reforms to control the judiciary while maintaining …
Sivaram Cheruvu and Jay N. Krehbiel, “Do Citizens in Backsliding Democracies Support International Courts’ Judicial Power? Evidence from Hungary.” Journal of Law and Courts, vol. 13, no. 1 (2025): 148–65. Summary: International courts are increasingly serving as bulwarks of democracy. These courts, however, often depend on the cooperation of the very governments they seek to …
Martín Gandur, Taylor Kinsley Chewning, and Amanda Driscoll, “Awareness of Executive Interference and the Demand for Judicial Independence: Evidence from Four Constitutional Courts.” Journal of Law and Courts, vol. 13, no. 1 (2025): 122–47. Summary: Awareness of courts has long been theorized to engender enhanced support for judicial independence, but this is a logic that …
Zoltán Szente, “Stepping Into the Same River Twice? Judicial Independence in Old and New Authoritarianism.” German Law Journal, vol. 22, no. 7 (2021): 1316–26. Summary: The study seeks to answer the question of whether there are similarities between the methods used to limit judicial independence in Hungary during the last phase of the communist regime, …
Petra Gyöngyi, “The Role of Judicial Associations in Resisting Rule of Law Backsliding: Hidden Pathways of Protecting Judicial Independence Amidst Rule of Law Decay.” International Journal of the Law in Context (UK), vol. 20, no. 2 (2024): pp.166-183. Summary: Hungary and Poland have been in the spotlight regarding their democratic backsliding, with Executives exerting control …
An analysis of the role of Hungarian lawyers who are blind and to a certain extent, also defenseless against recent authoritarian tendencies.