Opposition races for swift constitutional reform

A pro-government pundit calls the opposition plans to scrap the current Constitution without the required two thirds majority in parliament ‘dangerous civil war mongering’.

In an interview with 444, legal sociologist Zoltán Fleck, appointed to head Péter Márki-Zay’s ‘public law team’, says that if the opposition wins the elections next April, it will enact ‘swift surgical constitutional changes’ in addition to sacking the Prosecutor General, the Constitutional Court and the Budgetary Council. ‘We cannot govern otherwise’, he explains. All these measures would require a two-thirds parliamentary majority, but the opposition does not expect to win by such a large margin. Announcing this intention in advance, Fleck believes, would legitimise the planned radical changes.

In an angry column in Magyar Nemzet, Ottó Gajdics calls anyone who claims to restore the rule of law by illegal means ‘a scoundrel’. He condemns as irresponsible political adventurers those who want to scrap pivotal laws with a simple majority, and describes as ‘civil war mongers’ those who want to rewrite the constitution without being legally empowered to do so. He suggests that the leaders of the opposition intend to pack pivotal institutions with their own people without mustering the required numbers in Parliament. Thus, Gajdics believes, they are the ones who want to put an end to the rule of law.