After six years, special legal order ends in Hungary

After six years, governance under a state of danger has come to an end in Hungary. The state of danger is one of six types of special legal order defined by the Fundamental Law of Hungary, and as explained in our previous article when it was introduced in 2020, it differs from the state of emergency. What is perhaps most important about it is that it allows the government to make decisions quickly, without parliamentary approval, i.e. by passing decrees.

As mentioned above, the Orbán government initially proclaimed a state of danger in 2020 citing the coronavirus pandemic, and then kept it in place in 2022, this time citing the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Back in 2020, in a statement that did not age well, minister Gergely Gulyás said that, “Even though the left accused us of wanting to keep the special legal order in place forever, it will end sooner than in most European countries.” In the years since then, the Fidesz-KDNP-majority of the Hungarian Parliament kept extending the state of danger and, as a result,

the Orbán government essentially governed for an entire four-year term under the special legal order.

After Tisza’s victory, Péter Magyar asked Fidesz to extend the special legal order until 31 May, as according to their calculations, at least 160 emergency decrees remained in force. “The incoming Tisza government will have to amend 150–160 pieces of legislation, […] and that will take a few weeks. So we ask the outgoing government—unless, of course, its intention is to cripple the country on day one—to extend this.”

As Magyar said, the sudden transition had to be avoided in order to prevent legal chaos: with the end of the state of danger, the emergency government decrees—which Viktor Orbán and his administration had issued in recent years by bypassing the Parliament on account of the war in Ukraine or, the coronavirus pandemic before that—would have instantly become invalid. The outgoing government chose not to extend the state of danger due to the war.

Thus, on May 9, at its first sitting, the new parliament voted to elevate the emergency decrees to the status of law. The law, drafted by Márton Melléthei-Barna, entered into force on May 14. Among others, it concerns a temporary payment moratorium for the loans of farmers affected by frost or drought damage, as well as swine breeders whose livestock was affected by the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease.

Included among the measures originally introduced by a decree which have now been elevated to the status of law are some of the price caps introduced by the previous government: the subsidised fuel price will remain in place, as will the profit margin cap, though a higher upper limit has now been set due to market competition.