Part I — Situation overview

The 2024 pardon scandal opened a new chapter at the end of May 2026. Tamás Schanda, the former chief of cabinet of Katalin Novák, stated on 23 May 2026 that Zoltán Balog had emphatically requested the pardon in the case of Endre K.; the next day, on 24 May, Balog claimed to the MTI news agency that neither Viktor Orbán nor Anikó Lévai had requested any intercession. Meanwhile the Sándor Palace published the documents of the pardon case, and Tamás Gaudi-Nagy held out the prospect of criminal and civil complaints. The most important institutional step, however, is that the National Assembly decided to set up an inquiry committee — this raises the matter from the level of a press dispute to the level of public-law accountability.

A clarification is necessary here, because public discourse tends to blur the branches of power. Individual pardon in Hungary is a constitutional power of the President of the Republic: under Article 9(4)(g) of the Fundamental Law the head of state “exercises the right of individual pardon”, and under Article 9(5) the countersignature of a member of the Government is required for this decision. The pardon is therefore neither a government decision nor a judicial act: it does not override the court’s verdict, it only grants exemption from enforcement. The chain of responsibility involves three actors that must be kept apart — the head of state who makes the decision, the countersigning member of the Government, and those who initiate the application.

In MIAK’s reading the question is therefore not “who is guilty” but whether such a discretionary act of public power can be reconstructed and held to account after the fact. A pardon act meets the standard of the rule of law if its chain of responsibility is transparent, the decision is documented, and there is an institutional guarantee that prevents abuse. The present case is a test of this transparency — and at the same time an occasion to fill the missing guarantees.

Part II — Literature audit

Before turning to MIAK’s proposals, it is worth fixing the interpretive frame. According to the work of Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson (economists, leading authors of institutional economics, awarded the 2024 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics), the hallmark of durable, well-functioning systems is that inclusive institutions limit the exercise of power, and no one — private individual or public-office holder — can rise above the laws. Translated to the pardon case, this means that a discretionary decision too must remain within institutional limits. The conceptual frame for the measurability of these limits is provided by Governance Matters by Daniel Kaufmann and co-authors, which measures good governance along the dimensions of, among others, “voice and accountability” and “rule of law” — precisely the axes along which the transparency of a pardon procedure can be grasped. The common lesson of the two sources: power is legitimate when it is limited and accountable, and accountability is not a slogan but a measurable institutional property. The detailed literature treatment can be found in section 6.4 Literature in detail.

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK formulates two measurable institutional proposals that turn the individual case into a durable guarantee.

3.1 A transparency protocol for the pardon procedure (in the next legislative cycle)

MIAK proposes that the individual pardon procedure should receive mandatory transparency elements — while leaving the presidential power untouched. This means three guarantees: every pardon decision should have a written, retroactively searchable justification; the chain of application and countersignature should be documented and — with the protection of personality rights — subsequently knowable; and a public pardon register should be established with summary statistics. This is a direct extension of the I1 principle of public-law transparency to the pardon act: the aim is not to override the past decision but to ensure that in future no single pardon decision remains impossible to reconstruct. An important public-law limit: this protocol does not withdraw any power from the head of state, it only prescribes the documentation of the procedure.

3.2 Strengthening and regular constitutional review of checks and balances (on an annual basis)

The broader lesson of the pardon case is that the checks around discretionary public powers are weak. MIAK therefore proposes, under the A6 strengthening-of-checks-and-balances programme point, that the actual independence of the constitutional control institutions be accompanied by data-driven monitoring. Linked to this is the I10 constitutional “stress test”: an independent annual review would assess whether the system of checks and balances would prevent the emergence of a hypothetical concentration of power, and the result would be public. The present inquiry committee is the one-off, ad hoc application of this logic — MIAK proposes that the lesson be built into a permanent, regular control mechanism.

These proposals are bound together by a common principle: instead of seeking responsibility in the individual case, durable institutional guarantees must be built. As the scholarly frame records, power remains legitimate if it is limited and accountable — the pardon protocol and the constitutional stress test make this limitation traceable.

Part IV — Expected impacts and risks

Dimension Expected impact Risk
Public administration / public law The transparent pardon protocol reduces the chance of discretionary abuse and restores trust in the decision Over-regulation could make the justification formal if there is no real publicity behind it
Society Public investigation and a register strengthen public trust in accountability The inquiry committee could become a political stage if its aim becomes exposure rather than fact-finding
Rule of law Strengthening checks and balances creates a durable constitutional guarantee The process itself could raise constitutional concern if it substantively curtails the presidential power

The main consideration is the balance between fact-finding and rule-of-law self-restraint. The inquiry committee is a useful instrument for recording the facts, but it is important to be aware of its limits: it is not an adjudicating body, it does not establish criminal guilt and does not impose sanctions — its task is fact-finding and reporting, while legal accountability remains within the competence of the prosecution service and the courts, and political responsibility within that of the National Assembly and the public. The proposal tips towards the risk side if the committee prefers the spectacle of exposure to documented fact-finding; and it works well if its outcome is not only an assessment of the past but a forward-looking, general rule.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth tracking? (suggested performance indicators — KPIs)

MIAK proposes the following performance indicators (KPIs, Key Performance Indicators), which are worth tracking:

  • Documentation: whether pardon decisions have a written justification and a searchable register.
  • Publicity ratio: what proportion of the inquiry committee’s sittings and minutes are accessible to citizens.
  • Institutional lesson: whether, after the close of the investigation, the transparency protocol of the pardon procedure is created as a general rule.
  • Constitutional review: whether a regular, public annual review of checks and balances is launched.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s key message is that the real stake of the pardon case is not who is responsible for a single past decision, but whether in future such an act of public power will be transparent, documented and accountable. MIAK asks this of the decision-maker and of the public: the investigation should not stop at seeking the responsible party but should create a durable, general rule — and it should respect the public-law limits of the inquiry committee.

In this two MIAK foundational values move together. Accountability, because a discretionary public power is only legitimate if it can be reconstructed and held to account after the fact; and transparency, because without a documented justification and a public register the citizen cannot judge whether the decision was fair. Rule-of-law self-restraint — respecting the presidential power during fact-finding — is precisely what makes the credible assertion of these two values possible.

Part VI — Justifications and further sources

6.1 Press framing by spectrum

The press reception of the case is sharply divided, and this is in itself instructive. In the liberal and public-affairs lane Telex and 444.hu concentrated on reconstructing the chain of responsibility: Telex highlighted Tamás Schanda’s claim (that Balog had emphatically requested the pardon), while 444.hu drew attention to the contradiction between the published files and the earlier explanations. 24.hu framed the institutional side of parliamentary accountability (the role of the inquiry committee, Zoltán Lakner’s assessment). In the conservative lane Mandiner placed Balog’s denial at the centre (“there was no government request”), while HVG highlighted the news value of the Balog statement with the “broke his silence” narrative. The two poles thus frame the same event in opposite directions: one from responsibility, the other from denial. According to MIAK the productive question can be drawn from both frames: not whom to believe, but what institutional guarantee would have made the decision reconstructable in the first place.

6.2 Facts and data

  • Tamás Schanda’s statement: 23 May 2026.
  • Zoltán Balog’s MTI statement (denial of government pressure): 24 May 2026.
  • The Sándor Palace document release: 23 May 2026.
  • Decision to set up a parliamentary inquiry committee: press report of 23 May 2026.
  • Legal basis: under Article 9(4)(g) of the Fundamental Law individual pardon is a right of the head of state, with ministerial countersignature (Article 9(5)).

6.3 Policy aspects

  • Justice (programme points) — public-law transparency, constitutional control, the documentation of the pardon procedure;
  • Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points) — the strengthening of checks and balances, the traceability of public-power decisions.

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 Daron Acemoglu – James A. Robinson: Why Nations Fail

The central thesis of the book is that the guarantee of lasting prosperity and a stable institutional system is the inclusive institution, which shares and limits power, as opposed to the extractive arrangement, where power is concentrated in the discretion of the few. The authors emphasise the rule-of-law principle of equality:

“if the laws apply equally to everyone, then no single individual or group can rise above the laws.”

For the pardon case the direct lesson is this: a discretionary public power — such as the individual pardon — remains in harmony with the inclusive institutional logic if its procedure is limited, documented and accountable, that is, if no one can rise above the rules when the decision is made.

📖 Source: Daron Acemoglu – James A. Robinson: Why Nations Fail

6.4.2 Daniel Kaufmann and co-authors: Governance Matters

The work of the World Bank researchers breaks the quality of governance into six measurable dimensions, two of which are directly linked to the question of pardon transparency: “voice and accountability” and “rule of law”. The study shows empirically that a higher value of these dimensions goes together with better development outcomes. Projected onto the Hungarian pardon case, this means that accountability is not an abstract virtue but a measurable institutional property — precisely why MIAK proposes that the documentation of the pardon procedure and the functioning of checks and balances be tracked with regular, public indicators.

📖 Source: Daniel Kaufmann – Aart Kraay – Pablo Zoido-Lobatón: Governance Matters

6.5 International comparison

The transparency practice of the pardon power differs from country to country, but in developed rule-of-law states a common feature is documentation and subsequent knowability. In several European and North American systems a written submission and justification belong to the pardon decision, and regular, aggregated statistics are published on the granted and rejected applications. This does not limit the head of state’s discretion, it only ensures that the decision can be reconstructed and held to account before the public — precisely the model behind MIAK’s proposal 3.1.

Justice

  • I1 — Judicial and public-law transparency
  • I10 — Constitutional “stress test”

Transparency and anti-corruption policy

  • A6 — Strengthening of checks and balances

Proposed new programme point: Transparency protocol for the pardon procedure (duty of justification and public register) — for the Justice policy area.

6.7 Source register

Press sources (MIAK press monitor, 24 May 2026 — topic 3):

Knowledge-base references (literature):

  • 📖 Daron Acemoglu – James A. Robinson: Why Nations Fail
  • 📖 Daniel Kaufmann – Aart Kraay – Pablo Zoido-Lobatón: Governance Matters

Note: the local file path of the books does not appear in the visible text of the blog — only the author and the title.

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Justice (programme points; programme point ID: I1)
  • MIAK policy area: Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points; programme point ID: A6)
  • MIAK press monitor, 24 May 2026 — topic 3, score: 86/100

Additional public data sources:

  • Fundamental Law of Hungary (powers of the President of the Republic, Article 9); Act XXXVI of 2012 on the National Assembly (the rules of the inquiry committee).

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