Part I — Situation overview

On the agenda of the plenary session of the Constitutional Court of 17 August 2026 there are three motions for subsequent judicial review, each attacking a provision of the spring’s seventeenth amendment of the Fundamental Law. The first directly concerns the termination of the presidential mandate: on the basis of the amendment the National Assembly terminated Tamás Sulyok’s mandate, and opposition members of parliament asked for the annulment of the provision. The second examines the upper limit of the parliamentary mandate fixed at twelve years — an office held over three terms — and the termination of the mandate of constitutional judges. The third is likewise connected to the age limit for constitutional judges, and within that to the transitional rule of the amendment. According to this, a constitutional judge who had already reached the age of seventy before entry into force sees their mandate terminate on the first day of the second month following entry into force. For those who reach it later, on their seventieth birthday. Both contested provisions took effect retroactively, that is, they applied to sitting members of parliament and constitutional judges as well — and it is precisely this that the petitioners object to.

The antecedent is known. After the Tisza Party’s two-thirds victory in April, the party’s president called on the President of the Republic and other public law officeholders to resign on the very night of the election, and then set a deadline of 31 May for voluntary departure. Tamás Sulyok did not resign: he set out his constitutional concerns in several forums, and turned to the Constitutional Court and to the Venice Commission, the constitutional law advisory body of the Council of Europe. The termination of the mandate finally took place by an amendment of the Fundamental Law, with a new point inserted among the closing and miscellaneous provisions. On 11 August the National Assembly elected a new President of the Republic in the person of András Baka, who takes office on 19 August; Fidesz and the KDNP did not take part in the process of the election, holding it to be unlawful. The restoration of the age limit for constitutional judges terminated the mandate of four constitutional judges — among them Péter Polt. The same amendment took the right to elect the president back to the members of the body, and shortened the duration of the mandate from twelve years to nine. At its session of 13 August the Constitutional Court had already examined the motions attacking the sixteenth and seventeenth amendments; it rejected for lack of competence one of the submissions concerning the public interest asset management foundations performing public duties — this, however, was not a substantive position on the constitutionality of the contested provision.

Without two conceptual clarifications today can be misunderstood. The Constitutional Court is a judicial review forum: it examines whether a legal rule is in conformity with the Fundamental Law — it is not a forum of appeal above the ordinary courts, and it is not the arbiter of political debate. And judicial review here is “subsequent”: it is directed at a provision already in force, as opposed to prior review, which examines at the stage before promulgation. MIAK’s reading is therefore not about which political side today’s decision favours. In its analysis of 12 August 2026 MIAK already examined the question of whether a constitutional amendment which by its function contains an individual decision can be brought under judicial review. Today the stake is different: it is not individuality but the question of retroactivity and mandate protection that reaches the agenda at once, in three cases and along three different constitutional principles. The character of the real problem is that the balance of the branches of power can today be renegotiated in every term — and the present restoration in itself creates a precedent for the next turn.

Part II — Foundations in the literature

Three sources provide the interpretative frame of today’s case. The French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville, in his work Democracy in America written about his American journey in the 1830s, gave a natural history of majority rule. In his chapter on the “tyranny of the majority” he claims that the greatest danger of the democratic system comes not from outside but from the unlimited character of the winning majority. This gives the core of today’s question, since the subject of the dispute is precisely what binds the two-thirds majority. In his dialogue The Republic Plato describes the order in which forms of state degenerate, and starts from the proposition that no arrangement is stable in itself: the possibility of decay lies in the structure of the institution, not in the character of the actors — this idea is the source of MIAK’s I10 constitutional “stress test” programme point. And the Fundamental Law of Hungary fixes as a primary legal source on what grounds the mandate of the President of the Republic may terminate — with an itemised list whose closed character is in itself an argument in today’s proceedings. The detailed treatment of the literature — author by author, with quotations — can be found in the 6.4 Literature in detail section.

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable measures which would not influence the content of today’s decision but would write in advance the rule for the next similar situation.

3.1 Institutionalising the constitutional “stress test” ahead of every amendment of the Fundamental Law (starting with the next amendment proposal)

MIAK proposes that the National Assembly should stipulate at the level of its rules of procedure: the substantive debate of a proposal to amend the Fundamental Law may begin only if, within fifteen days of submission, a structured impact analysis is published on what a two-thirds majority of the opposite political composition could use the same provision for. The analysis should be prepared by an independent panel of experts — with nominees of the bar association, the legal research workshops and the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights in its composition — and should set out itemised: which constitutional guarantee the amendment affects, what scenario of abuse it opens up, and what counterweight would neutralise it. This is the operational version of the I10 programme point, which has so far figured in MIAK’s materials as an annual, summary report. Within Plato’s frame (see 6.4.2) this step turns into a procedure the recognition that the decay of an arrangement is not a question of intention but a structural possibility — and what is structurally possible, sooner or later someone will do.

3.2 Uniform, term-independent codification of mandate protection for public law offices (by the first half of 2027)

Today the protection of the mandates of the President of the Republic, the constitutional judges, the president of the State Audit Office, the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights and the other public law dignitaries lives in rules of different levels and different structures. MIAK proposes that by the first half of 2027 a single mandate protection framework at cardinal law level should be prepared, applying the same logic to all such offices: (a) a taxative, that is, itemised and closed list of the grounds for termination of the mandate; (b) a statement that any extension of the grounds for termination may be applied only from the next mandate term, not to the incumbent; (c) a documented right of the person concerned to comment in the termination procedure; (d) the obligatory, reasoned publicity of the closing of the procedure. Point (b) is the key: extending the prohibition of retroactive effect to public law mandates. This is the element that recurs in each of today’s three cases, and without which the same dispute starts over after every election. The proposal follows from the logic of the I4 judicial independence and A6 checks and balances programme points, and complements the KI7 selection and rotation system.

3.3 A plain-language, structured summary of Constitutional Court decisions (starting with today’s decision)

The social effect of a constitutional decision depends on whether it is understood. MIAK proposes that the Constitutional Court should issue with every substantive decision an accompanying summary of at most two pages and of uniform structure: what the question was, who put it, what the decision is, what the reason for the decision is, and what the express scope of the decision is — that is, what it does not apply to. This is not a replacement for the decision but the creation of its readability; the professional text remains unchanged. The I1 court transparency programme point carries the same logic through adjudication, and the I3 legislative impact assessment does so on the side of law-making. If in today’s three cases a decision is born which the public comes to know largely from press interpretations, then the legitimating force of the decision will be far smaller than its legal force.

The common principle of the three proposals is that none of them is about the present actors. The stress test runs even if the amendment is motivated by a policy aim close to MIAK; the mandate protection framework will also protect the officeholders elected by the present parliamentary majority against a future majority; and the plain-language summary is obligatory regardless of whom the decision favours. Tocqueville’s warning (see 6.4.1) is precisely this: the limits of the power of the majority have to be written not when they already hurt but while nobody yet misses them.

Part IV — Expected effects and risks

Dimension Expected effect Risk
Public law and the institutional system The protection of public law mandates becomes predictable; a change of power does not automatically entail a personnel purge Rigid mandate protection may conserve positions filled by the earlier majority even where the officeholder is unfit
Society The constitutional debate becomes a question of fact, not a question of camps; the decisions can be followed The plain-language summary may oversimplify the decision, and the professional nuances may be lost
Public administration The preparation of amendments of the Fundamental Law becomes more orderly and better documented The obligatory stress test slows down law-making; in a crisis situation this is a real cost
International perception From the point of view of the Venice Commission and the EU rule-of-law procedures a measurable, documented system of guarantees comes into being If the framework is created but not applied, formal compliance is worse than its absence

The main trade-off of the package of proposals lies between predictability and the capacity for correction. A system that leaves every mandate undefendable to the end of the term delivers itself up to the majority of the day; a system that makes every mandate inviolable, on the other hand, sets the earlier power construction in concrete and empties the electoral mandate of its content. In MIAK’s position the correct dividing line runs not at the length of the mandate but at the character of the grounds for termination: in the case of unfitness, incompatibility or breach of law let there be a procedure, with documented proof and legal remedy — but let the subsequent extension of the grounds for termination not affect those in office. The proposal tips over to the risk side if the mandate protection framework is not coupled with a real, workable accountability procedure: for in that case protection does indeed become impunity. In the case of the stress test the risk is of a different nature: if the composition of the panel is decided by political bargain, the analysis will be the stage scenery of legitimation, not its limit.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth following? (proposed KPIs)

Four proposed performance indicators (KPIs) are worth watching:

  • Publicity of reasoning: 100% of the decisions born in today’s three cases should carry a substantive, published reasoning — including, in the case of rejection for lack of competence, the legal reason for that.
  • Stress test coverage: by the end of 2027, 100% of proposals to amend the Fundamental Law should be accompanied by a public, prior impact analysis of the scenarios of abuse.
  • Mandate protection coverage: by the end of the first half of 2027 at least 90% of public law offices should be covered by a taxative rule of termination of uniform structure, with retroactive effect excluded.
  • Comprehensibility indicator: 100% of Constitutional Court decisions should be accompanied by a two-page summary within five working days of the promulgation of the decision.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s key message is that the real stake today is not the outcome of the three cases but whether a written yardstick remains after them. Of the decision-maker MIAK asks a single, cheap and quickly feasible step: the codification of the mandate protection framework and the obligatory prior impact analysis now, while it does not yet hurt the present majority — because later, when it does hurt, there will no longer be the will for it. And of the public it asks that today’s decisions should be judged not according to whom they favour but according to this: would the same reasoning bind a majority of the opposite direction as well.

Two MIAK foundational values are directly in play here. Ideology-free judgement: the yardstick which today is about the termination of Tamás Sulyok’s mandate will tomorrow be about the mandate of the head of state just elected — if it is not the same yardstick, then it was not a yardstick but an instrument. And accountability: a Constitutional Court decision fulfils its function if it is not only binding but also traceable; the publicity of the reasoning is not a gesture of courtesy towards the profession but the channel through which power gives an account of its own limits.

Part VI — Reasoning and further sources

6.1 The press framing by spectrum

The left-liberal band put the emphasis on the antecedents. Telex fitted the session of 17 August into the sequence of the spring’s events: from the call to resign uttered on the night of the election, through the deadline of 31 May and Tamás Sulyok’s submission to the Venice Commission, to the adoption of the seventeenth amendment. The paper presented the whole process as a single arc, and dealt separately with the question raised by Sulyok, whether an act which by its function is individual can qualify as an amendment of the Fundamental Law. 444.hu, by contrast, unfolded the legal-technical structure of the cases: which motion was submitted by whom, and exactly which provision it is directed at — this framing is the most precise in separating the three cases, while at the same time the paper’s headline (“it is judging the fundamental decisions of the Tisza transition”) attributes to the decision a role of society-wide reckoning which judicial review technically does not fulfil.

The pro-government and conservative band brought forward the personnel consequences of the same session. Magyar Nemzet and Mandiner both focused on the asymmetry of the transitional rule on the age limit for constitutional judges — on the fact that judges who reached the age of seventy before entry into force and those who reach it later lose their mandate at different points in time — and both papers highlighted that in Viktor Orbán’s case the twelve-year term limit also excludes obtaining a parliamentary mandate. Mandiner also recorded that Fidesz and the KDNP did not take part in the process of the presidential election, holding it to be unlawful. By MIAK’s yardstick of ideology-free judgement this framing brings in a substantive question: the problem of retroactive effect is a legal question, not a political one, and it stands even if the political judgement of the person concerned is divisive. It is precisely for this reason that the exclusion of retroactive effect was included in proposal 3.2.

The public affairs and economic band did not carry the topic on this day as an independent analysis — 24.hu and HVG approached from the aftermath of the presidential election of 11 August, in an opinion register, and Portfolio did not deal with the session. This absence is in itself a signal: the question of public law guarantees is not an item for the economic press until it connects to a direct market or funding consequence — whereas institutional predictability is part of the investment environment.

6.2 Facts and data

Data Value Source
Day of the plenary session of the Constitutional Court Monday, 17 August 2026 Telex, 444.hu, Magyar Nemzet, Mandiner
Number of motions heard 3 motions for subsequent judicial review, all connected to the 17th amendment of the Fundamental Law Agenda of the Constitutional Court (as cited by Mandiner)
New upper limit of the parliamentary mandate 12 years, or 3 parliamentary terms 17th amendment of the Fundamental Law
Age limit for constitutional judges 70 years (restored) 17th amendment of the Fundamental Law
Duration of the mandate of a constitutional judge shortened from 12 years to 9 17th amendment of the Fundamental Law
Mandates of constitutional judges terminated because of the age limit 4 (among them Péter Polt) Telex
Seat share of the 2026 election Tisza 141 seats out of 199 (70.85%) National Election Office (NVI), finalisation of 19 April 2026
Two-thirds threshold in a 199-member National Assembly 133 seats (66.83%) calculated on the basis of Act CCIII of 2011
Earlier Constitutional Court session on the 16th and 17th amendments 13 August 2026 Magyar Nemzet

A single row of the table gives the structural explanation of today’s case: the present government majority holds 141 seats, while the two-thirds threshold is 133. The difference is eight seats. The exercise of constituent power is therefore not a theoretical possibility today but a daily political instrument — and this is precisely the situation in which writing self-limiting rules is the hardest and at the same time the most important. For a margin of eight seats will work in exactly the same way in the reverse situation.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Justice (programme points) — the mandate protection framework is the extension of I4 judicial independence to public law offices; the prior impact analysis is the operational version of the I10 stress test; the decision summary carries the logic of I1 court transparency into constitutional adjudication; the law-making side is covered by I3 impact assessment.
  • Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points) — making the system of checks and balances measurable is the subject of the A6 programme point; the annual report of the stress test gives its set of indicators.
  • Public administration and e-government (programme points) — the procedural order for filling and terminating public law offices connects to the KI7 selection and rotation system.

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America

In his chapter on majority rule Tocqueville does not argue against democracy but names its gravest internal risk. According to his starting point the source of sovereignty may be the people, but it does not follow from this that the majority acting in the name of the people may do anything:

“I hold it to be an impious and detestable maxim that, politically speaking, a people has a right to do whatsoever it pleases.”

To this he adds the observation that as soon as a party gains preponderance, “all public authority comes under its control”, its supporters fill the positions, and no institutional channel remains for the representatives of the other side. Tocqueville’s solution is not to deprive the majority of power but to fix the limits of the exercise of power in advance — in the system he examined this was secured partly by freedom of association, partly by an independent judicial power. In today’s Hungarian situation this idea is directly applicable: the common denominator of the three cases is that a two-thirds majority decided on the composition and mandate of its own constitutional counterweights. MIAK’s proposal is therefore not aimed at taking away the right of decision — constituent power belongs to the National Assembly — but at ensuring that the exercise of this right should have a procedural order written down in advance and identical for everyone.

📖 Source: Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America

6.4.2 Plato: The Republic

The eighth book of Plato’s dialogue describes the order of the decay of forms of state: the ideal arrangement is followed by ambitious military rule, that by oligarchy, that by democracy, and finally by tyranny. According to the summary of the text the best condition “quickly degenerates”, and at the end of the process “we have got from the best to the worst”.

The value of the proposition lies not in its historical accuracy — the descriptive validity of the order is disputable — but in the recognition that the possibility of decay lies in the structure, not in the character of the actors. An arrangement is stable if it also survives bad-faith or simply short-sighted actors reaching the key positions. This idea is the basis of MIAK’s I10 programme point: the essence of the annual constitutional stress test is precisely that it examines not the intention of the power-holder of the day but whether the system of checks would prevent a hypothetical concentration of power from coming into being. Today’s three cases are interesting in this frame not because they would reveal anything about the present majority but because they show that in the Hungarian public law structure, in possession of a two-thirds majority, deciding on the composition of one’s own counterweights is today possible without procedural obstacle. This structural fact is independent of who happens to exercise power.

📖 Source: Plato: The Republic (Book VIII)

6.4.3 The Fundamental Law of Hungary

Article 12(3) of the Fundamental Law lists itemised the grounds on which the mandate of the President of the Republic may terminate: on expiry of the term of the mandate, by death, in the case of incapacity to perform the functions for more than ninety days, if the conditions required for the election no longer obtain, by a declaration of incompatibility, by resignation, and by removal from office. Paragraph (4) prescribes for the individual determinations the votes of two-thirds of the members present, and Article 12(1) states that the person of the President of the Republic is inviolable.

The closed structure of the list is one of the keys to today’s case. The function of a taxative list is precisely that a ground not contained in it cannot be invoked — this is what gives the office its stability, and through it the predictability of the public law system. The seventeenth amendment did not extend the list in Article 12 but provided on the termination of the mandate through a new point inserted among the closing and miscellaneous provisions; the petitioners’ constitutional objection is partly directed precisely at this structural solution. MIAK takes no position on this question: deciding whether a provision of the Fundamental Law is in conformity with the Fundamental Law itself falls within the exclusive competence of the Constitutional Court. What MIAK proposes concerns the future: if the legislator fixes the grounds for termination of public law mandates in a uniform framework at cardinal law level, with the express exclusion of retroactive effect, then in the next similar situation there will be no need to argue about the extent of constituent power — because there will already be an answer written down in advance.

📖 Source: The Fundamental Law of Hungary (text in force on 17 April 2026)

6.5 International comparison

Three working models present themselves in European practice. The German solution rests on a single, non-renewable twelve-year term for federal constitutional judges and on a bicameral election by qualified majority: non-renewability removes the judge’s interest in preserving the goodwill of the appointing side, and the qualified majority forces an agreement between the government side and the opposition. The Portuguese model — which MIAK’s I4 programme point names as a positive precedent — approaches from judicial self-government, and achieves the highest perception of independence within the European Union. The third model is the Polish experience, instructive from the negative direction: the reshaping of the constitutional court and the judiciary after 2015, and then the attempt at reversal after 2023, together show that if institutional composition becomes an instrument of the majority of the day, then restoration too takes place with the same instruments — and the legitimacy of the system decreases with both steps.

The Venice Commission of the Council of Europe has applied the same yardstick to this question in several of its opinions: an amendment affecting the composition or mandate of constitutional bodies is acceptable if (a) it is written as a general rule, not for an individual situation, (b) it takes effect not for those in office but from the next mandate term, and (c) it is preceded by broad consultation involving the opposition as well. MIAK’s proposal 3.2 translates these three conditions into domestic codification content — regardless of which way today’s decisions fall.

Justice

  • I1 — Court transparency
  • I3 — Legislative impact assessment
  • I4 — Protection of judicial independence
  • I10 — Constitutional “stress test”

Transparency and anti-corruption policy

  • A6 — Strengthening checks and balances

Public administration and e-government

  • KI7 — Official selection and rotation system

Proposed new programme point: A uniform, term-independent mandate protection framework for public law offices, with the exclusion of retroactive effect — for the Justice area.

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK press monitor, 17 August 2026 — topic 1):

  • [Telex] Az Alkotmánybíróság elé kerül a Tisza-kormány három fontos közjogi intézkedése — https://telex.hu/belfold/2026/08/16/alkotmanybirosag-ules-koztarsasagi-elnok-menesztes-sulyok-tamas-alkotmanybirak-orszaggyulesi-kepviselok-megvalasztasa-korhatarok
  • [444.hu] A tiszás rendszerváltás alapvető döntéseit ítéli meg hétfőn az Alkotmánybíróság — https://444.hu/2026/08/16/a-tiszas-rendszervaltas-alapveto-donteseit-iteli-meg-hetfon-az-alkotmanybirosag
  • [Magyar Nemzet] Alkotmánybíróság elé kerül Sulyok Tamás eltávolítása és a mandátumokra vonatkozó korhatár is — https://magyarnemzet.hu/belfold/2026/08/alkotmanybirosag-alaptorveny-modositas-sulyok-tamas-tisza
  • [Mandiner] Dönthet az Alkotmánybíróság Sulyok Tamás eltávolításának jogszerűségéről — https://mandiner.hu/belfold/2026/08/donthet-az-alkotmanybirosag-sulyok-tamas-eltavolitasanak-jogszerusegerol
  • [Népszava] Hétfőn az Alkotmánybíróság elé kerül a Tisza-kormány három vitatott közjogi intézkedése — https://nepszava.hu/ (title-level reference only)
  • [HVG] Tóta W. Árpád: Baka András és a nemzet kétsége — https://hvg.hu/360/20260812_tota-w-arpad-a-nemzet-ketsege-baka-andras-allamfo-valasztas-hvg (the article was not publicly downloadable)
  • [24.hu] „Nem arra van szükségünk, hogy egy behódoló államfőnk legyen" — https://24.hu/belfold/2026/08/12/baka-andras-koztarsasagi-elnok-parlament-megvalasztas-video/

Knowledge base references (professional literature):

  • 📖 Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America
  • 📖 Plato: The Republic
  • 📖 The Fundamental Law of Hungary

Note: the local file path of the books does not appear in the visible text of the blog — only the author and the title. The file path is an internal matter of the generation process, not the reader’s.

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Justice (programme points; programme point ID: I1, I3, I4, I10)
  • MIAK policy area: Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points; programme point ID: A6)
  • MIAK policy area: Public administration and e-government (programme points; programme point ID: KI7)
  • MIAK legal foundations — separation of the branches of power and the competence map of the constitutional bodies (background material)
  • MIAK press monitor, 17 August 2026 — topic 1, score: 92/100

Supplementary public data sources (where used):

  • Decisions register and public session agenda of the Constitutional Court
  • Venice Commission (CDL-AD) opinions on the modification of the mandate of constitutional bodies
  • European Commission — Hungarian country chapter of the annual rule-of-law report
  • V-Dem Institute — Liberal Democracy Index time series
  • National Election Office — final result of the 2026 parliamentary election

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