Judit Varga's departure: her resignation doesn't make her affairs disappear

Judit Varga will step down as Justice Minister of Hungary at the end of July, preferring instead to be catapulted into the European Parliament. Varga was appointed four years ago and has been implicated in two major scandals during this time. One has made it before the European Parliament and the other is currently before the courts.

Hello, Pali!

Judit Varga's name keeps coming up, for example, in the corruption case of the former President of the Court Bailiffs, György Schadl, and former Fidesz-delegated Deputy Justice Minister and State Secretary Pál Völner. In an intercepted conversation, Schadl said that one of the bailiffs had threatened to report Varga, and even Völner himself and his defence lawyer are quite adamant that the court should hear the Justice Minister as a witness in the trial.

In the hearings, they always – very deliberately – drop just enough information about Varga to keep the attention on the minister, so that they can get her called in to testify.

For example, Völner once handed over a piece of paper which contained the printed version of various message-exchanges, including one with Judit Varga. One looked like this:

Varga: Hello, Pali! Did XY talk to you about the vh-matter (vh=short for "végrehajtó", Hungarian for court bailiff – TN)?

Völner: Yes, I'd love to consult with you about it later this week.

Varga: Okay, let's talk tomorrow before the Secretary of State meeting.

In another exchange, a ministry employee texted Völner to let him know that Judit Varga had taken action on amending the law on bailiffs . According to Völner, this message confirms that Varga "kept a close eye on matters relating to bailiffs".

Although Völner says he usually deletes his text messages himself, the messages he submitted to the court somehow survived on his phone, in his cloud.

The former Fidesz state secretary claims that Varga can confirm to the court that he did not possess the authority for appointing bailiffs, but this fell under former state secretaries Mariann Vízkelety and Barnabás Hajas. According to the accusation, Völner was the one who had indicated to the competent department in the ministry who should be appointed as bailiffs – based on proposals made by György Schadl.

"The minister kept a tight grip on the ministry's affairs, always monitoring the progress and results of tenders," Völner told the court. He claimed that the Justice Minister always asked to be kept informed about ongoing matters, which was how Völner explained to the court why he wanted to call Judit Varga as a witness.

At one point in the trial, Völner's defence lawyer, Gábor Papp, asked Völner briefly and succinctly the following question in court:

Papp: Was there ever a three-way meeting between the minister, Schadl and yourself?

Völner: There was.

The investigative materials in Telex's possession also show that there was at least one such meeting between the three of them: when Schadl became worried that another bailiff might be plotting against him, he checked with Völner and tried to get an appointment with Varga. In his words, "Sometime, maybe, around Monday or Wednesday, could we talk for about ten minutes with the good Madame Minister?" He wanted the meeting to also be attended by Völner. The Secretary of State replied that he would try to set it up. And on 12 July 2021, Schadl and Völner had a meeting with the Minister of Justice.

Telex asked Judit Varga herself about all this. Varga said that it is the duty of the Minister of Justice to meet with the heads of the various judiciary branches, and that she could recall at most one or two such meetings with György Schadl, but that in all cases her chief of staff was present. The minister stressed that these were always professional meetings. Regarding the text messages exchanged with Völner, she said that every time she had spoken to her Secretary of State on the phone or had exchanged text messages with him, it was about professional matters. She also said that, as minister, it was her job to closely follow the goings-on in her field, including those in the bailiff office, so there was "nothing to see" there.

Although Völner and his team are obviously working very hard to have Varga summoned as a witness, it will ultimately be up to the court to decide whether or not they want to hear the minister. The court hasn’t said anything about this so far. But the chance that witnesses from the higher echelons will be heard is still there. For example, the former Minister without Portfolio in charge of the expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant, János Süli, has already been summoned for the autumn to testify about a side aspect of the corruption case. So this could easily happen to the Justice Minister whose name has often come up in the courtroom.

Madame Minister was really kind

Speaking of Schadl-Völner documents. In another intercepted telephone conversation, this is how György Schadl and Pál Völner spoke to each other:

Völner: Did you see Telex?

Schadl: No.

Völner: Madam Minister was really kind to me. About the Pegasus-affair.

This conversation took place in July 2021, a few hours after Judit Varga told Telex that it was Pál Völner who had signed the authorisations for secret surveillance in the Ministry of Justice, and that as Minister she was only responsible for ensuring that the legislation was complied with. According to the wiretap transcripts, this interview with the minister was quite badly received by Völner, who then parked his phone for a while.

Pegasus is an Israeli spy software that can be used to intercept smartphones, but it can also be used to access all kinds of data stored on phones. In the summer of 2021, it was revealed that opposition politicians, businessmen and independent journalists in Hungary had been monitored with it, and Fidesz politician Lajos Kósa admitted that the Ministry of Interior had bought the spy software (although the Prosecutor’s Office later claimed that this "does not correspond to the facts"). Judit Varga herself later said, "Let's not be ridiculous. Every country needs such a tool".

The case also reached the European Parliament, where a special committee was set up to investigate the use of Pegasus. The committee visited Hungary in February this year, but the Hungarian government – like the Poles – did not receive the delegation, with Judit Varga, for example, calling it a "farce from Brussels".