Part I — Situation overview

Justice Minister Márta Görög submitted the bill on the amendment of criminal law and related other acts to the National Assembly on 1 September 2026. The 43-page submission amends the Criminal Code at several points, and the greater part of the provisions serves the transposition of EU directives or the settlement of ongoing infringement proceedings. The most contested element is a new form of confiscation of assets. According to the bill, confiscation would also have to be ordered in respect of assets acquired in the five years preceding the commencement of criminal proceedings, which someone acquired from a person participating in a criminal organisation, and where the assets — or the acquirer’s way of life — are particularly disproportionate to their verifiable income. The explanatory memorandum states the essence of the structure openly: in such cases “it cannot be verified beyond doubt that the assets in question also derive from a criminal offence”, but the connection to a criminal organisation, the fact of acquisition and the unexplained enrichment together establish a burden of proof “that can already be reversed”. The same package would repeal the conditional suspension by the prosecution service applicable to foreign people smugglers, introduced in 2025 — on account of which the European Commission launched infringement proceedings — and, as the transposition of the EU directive on the protection of the environment through criminal law, it also extends the Criminal Code with a new offence.

The bill has antecedents, and this is the most important thing for the reader to see. The reversal of the burden of proof in confiscation is not unknown in Hungarian law even today. Under Section 74/A of the Criminal Code, assets acquired by the perpetrator during the period of their participation in a criminal organisation, of the putting into circulation of or trafficking in narcotic drugs, or of people smuggling committed on a commercial basis or in a criminal association, have to be regarded as subject to confiscation until the contrary is proved. Compared with this, the present bill goes beyond the framework in force in one respect: the presumption is directed not at the perpetrator but at a third person who has not themselves committed a criminal offence. This is why the phrase “confiscation of assets without proof of a criminal offence” has spread in public discourse. The text of the bill is narrower than that, because it requires the connection to a criminal organisation and the disproportionate enrichment together. The international literature calls this family non-conviction based confiscation. The debate is not thereby diminished, only made more precise.

The bill also connects to another strand. In parallel the government is preparing a submission on the acceleration of criminal proceedings; according to HVG’s article of 2 September, this divides the judiciary. The arguments of the judges asked are not objections of principle but capacity arguments: legislative frameworks, the staff shortage at the Budapest-Capital Regional Court, and without resources acceleration remains on paper. The article also gives concrete examples of what slowness means today — the Völner–Schadl case has been running for three years, the trial of György Simonka and his associates for six, and in the case of the Microsoft licence procurements an investigation has been under way since 2019. MIAK’s reading: the debate here is not about the correctness of a legal policy intention, but about whether the real social demand for accountability can be met without sacrificing the guarantees of rule-of-law procedure. There is no necessary conflict between the two aims, but reconciling them is not a rhetorical but a legal-technical task — and on this point the present text of the bill is still in arrears.

Part II — Foundations in the literature

The interpretive frame of the bill is composed of three sources. The first is the Criminal Code in force and its commentary: in Hungarian law confiscation of assets was transformed in 2001 from a penalty into a measure, lost its retributive function and became a reparative legal consequence — one aimed at restoring the impaired financial position; this is the doctrinal position that the present bill strains. The second is the constitutional and Convention limit: the Fundamental Law of Hungary protects both the presumption of innocence and the right to property, while the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees a fair trial in Article 6 and the peaceful enjoyment of possessions in Article 1 of its First Protocol. Strasbourg case law does not prohibit non-conviction based confiscation, but ties it to strict conditions of proportionality and procedure. The third is the chapter on the rule of law in the volume of essays The Authority of Law by Joseph Raz (Israeli-British legal philosopher, one of the leading authors of legal positivism): according to Raz, law fulfils its function if it is capable of guiding the conduct of its addressees, and for this the rule must be prospective, public and clear. In the same place Raz also warns that the rule of law must not be placed above every other value — this duality is precisely the structure of the present debate. The detailed treatment of the literature — author by author, with quotations — can be found in section 6.4 Literature in detail.

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable measures. The starting point of the position is that the extension of the instrument is in itself defensible: the transposition of the EU asset recovery directive is an obligation, and action against the outflow of assets by criminal organisations is a genuine public interest. The question is not whether there should be such an instrument, but with what limits.

3.1 A judicial reservation for every deprivation of assets (in the parliamentary debate on the bill, as an amendment)

The text of the act should state expressly that extended confiscation of assets can be ordered exclusively by a court decision, never by an administrative or authority decision — including that the data access entitlement of the body responsible for asset recovery cannot found an independent power of deprivation. This stipulation can be derived from the law in force today as well, but in the new situation created by the bill — where the presumption is directed at a non-perpetrating third person — express codification is not superfluous caution. According to Raz’s requirement of legal certainty (see 6.4.4), the rule must be foreseeable; the judicial reservation is the mechanism that makes individual discretion verifiable and reasoned after the fact. The bill imposes additional work on the courts; MIAK regards this as achievable together with addressing the staff shortage at the Budapest-Capital Regional Court, not independently of it. The relevant MIAK programme point is I5, which sets out the procedural guarantees of deprivation of property and independent judicial review.

3.2 A compulsory, published legislative impact assessment compared against the Strasbourg standard (before the final vote)

A public impact assessment should be prepared for the bill, answering at least four questions: how many cases the legislator expects annually; how large the estimated set of third persons affected is; what avenue of legal remedy is available to a good-faith acquirer, and within what time; and finally what actual standard of proof the state has to meet for the presumption to be triggered at all. The assessment should compare the bill with the case law of the European Court of Human Rights on non-conviction based confiscation, and show where the Hungarian solution stands relative to that standard. This is the direct application of MIAK’s programme point I3, which prescribes cost-benefit analysis, the identification of those affected and a proportionality test as a compulsory annex to every bill. In present legislative practice a formal impact assessment is prepared for roughly one third of bills, and one with substantive analysis for far fewer — for a presumption entailing deprivation of property this level is not acceptable.

3.3 A sunset date and a compulsory parliamentary review (five years)

The new form of extended confiscation should receive a sunset date: the provision should lapse automatically in five years unless the National Assembly — in the knowledge of the actual data on its application — extends it. For the review, the government should submit data on how many proceedings were started, in how many cases the court ordered confiscation, and in how many cases the appellate forum found the deprivation unfounded. This solution does not weaken the instrument, but builds in learning: if the data confirm its effectiveness, extension is politically easy; if not, the provision ceases of itself, without anyone having to withdraw their own earlier decision. MIAK’s programme point I3 recommends a sunset date for every piece of legislation below constitutional level; here the proposal is particularly warranted.

The three measures are linked by a single principle, which MIAK calls the opponent test: an instrument of power is well drafted if its author would find it bearable even if it ended up tomorrow in the hands of their political opponent. The instruments of accountability are not the property of one government but part of the legal order — and the next government will apply this same act. This test protects at once the present opposition and the future voters of the present governing party; MIAK’s programme point A6, the strengthening of checks and balances, targets precisely this symmetry. Raz’s requirement of legal certainty leads to the same place: a rule whose scope of application cannot be foreseen cannot guide conduct, and therefore does not fulfil its own function.

Part IV — Expected effects and risks

Dimension Expected effect Risk
Administration of justice The toolkit for action against the outflow of assets by criminal organisations expands; the obligation under the EU directive is fulfilled The additional burden falling on the courts, without resources and staff, increases the existing procedural delays
Protection of property The protection of the good-faith acquirer for consideration is retained in the Criminal Code in force Extending the presumption to third persons shifts the burden of justification onto private individuals who are not parties to the proceedings
Public trust The social demand for accountability receives a visible answer If the first cases appear politically selective, the credibility of the instrument is lost immediately, and it discredits later, well-founded cases as well
Legal certainty The transposition of the EU directive settles the present infringement situation With an unforeseeable scope of application the rule cannot guide conduct — in Raz’s sense it does not satisfy the formal requirement of the rule of law

The main question to weigh is where the threshold for triggering the presumption lies. If the text of the act leaves the concepts of “assets acquired from a person participating in a criminal organisation” and “disproportionate way of life” broad, the instrument may in practice reach far beyond the circle for which the legislator intended it. In that case the burden of proof falls on a private individual who concluded a contract in good faith. If, on the other hand, the threshold is narrow and precise, the provision will be applicable in few cases but strongly, and the remedy statistics will bear this out. The bill tips over to the risk side if the acceleration package and the confiscation package enter into force at the same time without judicial capacity expanding: in that case the shorter deadline and the reversed burden of proof together reduce the chance of the person concerned being able to defend themselves substantively. The instrument works if three conditions are met at once — a judicial decision, a predictable scope of application, and a real time for legal remedy.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth following? (proposed KPIs)

MIAK proposes the following performance indicators (KPIs) for the review after the provision enters into force. These are proposed indicators, not government undertakings.

  • Rate of upholding: what percentage of confiscations ordered on the basis of the new form the appellate forum upholds. It is worth taking a rate above 70 per cent as a target — below that, the instrument is being launched without foundation.
  • Procedural time: the median time elapsed from the submission of the confiscation motion to the final decision. If this figure does not fall after the introduction, the acceleration package has not achieved its aim.
  • The number and composition of third persons affected: how many private individuals not charged with committing a criminal offence come within the scope of the proceedings annually, and in what percentage of these the case closes without deprivation.
  • The ratio of recovered to actually received sums: the quotient of the nominal value of confiscations ordered and the sum actually received by the budget — the most important indicator of the credibility of asset recovery policy, not published today.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s request in a single sentence: in the parliamentary debate the bill should receive three amendments — an express judicial reservation, a compulsory and public impact assessment, and a five-year sunset date — and the final vote should be taken only together with these. This is not a slowing of accountability; on the contrary, this is what makes accountability unassailable. An asset deprivation case in which every step of the procedure was foreseeable, the court decided, and the impact assessment calculated the consequences in advance cannot be demolished by political attack. A case, on the other hand, in which the rule was broad and the procedure fast discredits the whole of asset recovery policy for years.

Two of MIAK’s foundational values are at work here. Accountability is what justifies the existence of the instrument: without depriving offenders of assets derived from crime, the imposition of responsibility remains largely symbolic. Openness, on the other hand, is what determines the implementation: a presumption entailing deprivation of property is legitimate only if the data on its application are public, and if the legislator said in advance what it expects from it. Here the two values are not opposed but conditions of each other — accountability is worth as much as the public can verify of it.

Part VI — Justifications and further sources

6.1 The framing of the press, spectrum by spectrum

The liberal-left and public affairs band stayed with the legal-technical description. In its report based on the MTI material, Telex presented the bill as a whole — the new form of confiscation, the repeal of the people-smuggling rules and the aim of EU compliance as elements of equal rank — and demonstrated the reversal of the burden of proof by quoting the explanatory memorandum verbatim. HVG approached from two different angles: in Tuesday’s news it placed Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s Facebook post at the head of the framing (“We are widening the possibility of confiscation of assets”), whereas in the longer piece of 2 September it put the division of the judiciary in focus, listing concrete cases that have dragged on for years. This second piece is the most informative in the field, because it examines not the intention but the feasibility. At the level of the lead, Népszava highlighted the repeal of the people-smuggling rule from the package (title-level reference only).

The economic band — Portfolio — gave the source-of-law context most precisely: the article explicitly names the 2024 EU directive on asset recovery and confiscation as the legal basis of the amendment, and indicates that the package also transposes the directive on the protection of the environment through criminal law. Economic framing typically emphasises the compliance constraint rather than the political intention — and in this case that is also the more accurate reading in substance.

The conservative band placed the question of the burden of proof at the centre, and this framing is substantive. The article in Magyar Nemzet quotes the bill’s own formulation that assets may also be seized whose derivation from a criminal offence cannot be proved beyond doubt, and draws attention to the extended, direct access to registry data of the body responsible for asset recovery — the latter did not appear in the other papers. At the same time the article names the bill as a submission by Bálint Ruff, the minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office, whereas Telex, HVG and Portfolio concurrently describe it as the bill of Justice Minister Márta Görög. Instead of analysis, Mandiner targeted the tentativeness of the prime minister’s formulation (“presumably”), without legal argument on the substance. Raising the data-access strand is the conservative band’s substantive contribution to the debate — from MIAK’s point of view this is the detail that the impact assessment should treat separately.

6.2 Facts and data

Item Law in force Change under the bill
Subject of the presumption the perpetrator (Section 74/A of the Criminal Code) a third person acquiring assets from the perpetrator
Triggering set of cases for the presumption participation in a criminal organisation; putting into circulation of and trafficking in narcotic drugs; people smuggling committed on a commercial basis or in a criminal association connection to a criminal organisation + particularly disproportionate assets/way of life
Look-back period the period of commission of the listed offences the five years preceding the commencement of criminal proceedings
Excluding ground assets acquired in good faith for consideration cannot be confiscated (Section 74(5)(b) of the Criminal Code) the bill does not affect this excluding ground
Legal nature a measure, not a penalty (since Act CXXI of 2001) the bill does not change the legal nature
Legal basis — the 2024 EU directive on asset recovery and confiscation

Two further elements in the package that received less attention in the debate: the conditional suspension by the prosecution service applicable to foreign people smugglers ceases on a phased basis (suspensions already ordered remain in force so that proceedings do not have to be restarted en masse), and the Criminal Code is extended with a new offence on the breach of EU environmental rules, together with the confiscability of assets deriving from damage to nature committed on a commercial basis. Both are answers to an infringement or transposition constraint.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Administration of justice (programme points) — the procedural guarantees of deprivation of property and independent judicial review (programme point ID: I5), the compulsory legislative impact assessment and the sunset date (programme point ID: I3), as well as the annual constitutional stress test, the subject of which is precisely proposals of this kind (programme point ID: I10);
  • Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points) — the symmetrical, government-independent design of the instruments of accountability (programme point ID: A6);
  • Public security and law enforcement (programme points) — the evidence-based examination of the ratio of punishment to prevention, to be applied to the deterrent effect of deprivation of assets as well (programme point ID: KB3).

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 National Assembly: Act C of 2012 on the Criminal Code

The two layers of the regulation in force are to be read separately. Under Section 74, confiscation of assets has to be ordered in respect of assets originating from the commission of a criminal offence, acquired during or in connection with its commission — so it is for the state to establish the connection. Section 74/A is an exception to this: it regards as subject to confiscation, until the contrary is proved, assets acquired by the perpetrator during the period of their participation in a criminal organisation, of the putting into circulation of or trafficking in narcotic drugs, or of people smuggling committed on a commercial basis or in a criminal association. The commentary records that the direction of the regulation turned at the turn of the millennium:

“This brought to an end the retributive function of confiscation of assets, and at the same time it became a restorative legal consequence. In accordance with this change, confiscation of assets was transformed in 2001 (by Act CXXI of 2001) from a penalty into a measure, since the deprivation of an increase in assets occurring through or in connection with a criminal offence obviously cannot be a penalty, but only a reparative measure aimed at the formal restoration of the impaired position.”

In the case of the present bill this sentence is the most important point of reference. If the deprivation is directed at assets whose criminal origin is not proved, the logic of “restoration” is hard to sustain — since it is not clear what impaired financial position we are restoring. The bill therefore shifts not only the burden of proof but also strains the doctrinal self-understanding of the legal institution as settled since 2001. This is not an argument against the bill; it is an argument for the explanatory memorandum answering this question openly.

📖 Source: National Assembly: Act C of 2012 on the Criminal Code

6.4.2 National Assembly: Fundamental Law of Hungary

Two provisions of the Fundamental Law stand against the bill, and both are limits, not prohibitions. Under Article XXVIII no one is to be considered guilty until their criminal liability has been established by a final decision of a court — this is the presumption of innocence. Article XIII protects the right to property, and permits the deprivation of property in exceptional cases determined by an act, with full compensation. Formally the bill conflicts with neither provision, because it does not establish guilt but sets up a presumption relating to assets, and it does not expropriate but applies a measure. The substantive question, however, is precisely this: if a presumption relating to assets results in practice in a private individual not burdened with criminal liability having to justify the origin of their assets, then the constitutional protection remains formally intact while its effect weakens. The constitutional assessment of the bill therefore depends on the precision of the scope of application, not on the name of the legal institution.

📖 Source: National Assembly: Fundamental Law of Hungary

6.4.3 Council of Europe: European Convention on Human Rights

Two provisions of the Convention provide the Strasbourg standard. Under Article 6(2), “everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law”, while Article 1 of the First Protocol states:

“Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law.”

Two things follow from this wording for the Hungarian bill. First: deprivation of possessions is not prohibited, but is tied to three conditions — public interest, determination by law, and respect for the general principles of international law. Non-conviction based confiscation is therefore not in itself excluded under the Convention; Strasbourg case law subjects it to a proportionality examination. Second: since the guarantees of Article 6 apply to a person “charged with a criminal offence”, in proceedings concerning the assets of a third person not charged, these guarantees do not apply automatically — in such cases procedural protection has to be created by national law. That is the responsibility of the Hungarian legislator, not of Strasbourg.

📖 Source: Council of Europe: European Convention on Human Rights

6.4.4 Joseph Raz: The Authority of Law

In his essay on the rule of law Raz deliberately defines the concept formally, and derives the requirements from that. His starting point is that

“if the law is to be obeyed it must be capable of guiding the behaviour of its subjects. It must be such that they can find out what it is and act on it.”

From this follows his first and most important principle: all laws must be prospective, public and clear, because a retroactive rule cannot give guidance, and a vague rule misleads. Translated to the confiscation bill, this means that the decisive question is not the direction of the burden of proof but whether the addressee of the rule can know in advance what conduct brings them within its scope. If the content of the concepts “disproportionate way of life” and “assets acquired from a person participating in a criminal organisation” is settled only in individual cases, then in Raz’s sense the provision does not satisfy the formal requirement of the rule of law — regardless of the legitimacy of its aim. At the same time Raz warns of the opposite error too: the rule of law must not be placed above the other political values, because formal legal certainty does not in itself make good a bad rule, nor does it make a good rule bad. MIAK’s position takes precisely this duality seriously: it does not question the aim of accountability, but it does hold the legislator to the foreseeability of the rule.

📖 Source: Joseph Raz: The Authority of Law

6.5 International comparison

The European practice of non-conviction based confiscation is far wider than the Hungarian debate suggests, and the difference usually lies not in the existence of the instrument but in the built-in brakes. The Irish Criminal Assets Bureau, the office set up to trace criminal assets, has since 1996 deprived persons of assets presumed to be of criminal origin on the civil standard of proof, but exclusively in court proceedings, and the person concerned has a full right of legal remedy. The Italian system of preventive measures follows a similar logic in action against organised crime, and it is precisely this model that has generated the most Strasbourg cases — from these developed the proportionality standard that will also be the basis for assessing the Hungarian bill. The United Kingdom’s institution of the unexplained wealth order — a court order requiring the justification of unexplained enrichment — has been in force since 2018, but its scope of application is narrow: a threshold value, specific categories of person and judicial authorisation limit it. The common feature in all three systems is the same: the instrument is strong, but the scope of application is narrow and fixed in advance, and the decision belongs to a court. It is this combination that the present text of the Hungarian bill does not yet fully contain.

Administration of justice

  • I3 — Legislative impact assessment
  • I5 — Protection of property rights
  • I10 — Constitutional stress test

Transparency and anti-corruption policy

  • A6 — Strengthening checks and balances

Public security and law enforcement

  • KB3 — Crime prevention vs. punishment impact assessment

Proposed new programme point: An opponent test in the legislation of instruments of power — for the Administration of justice area: for every bill introducing a new state instrument of coercion or a presumption of proof, a short analysis of how the instrument would work in the hands of a politically opposed government should be a compulsory annex.

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK press monitor, 2 September 2026 — topic 1):

Knowledge base references (specialist books):

  • 📖 National Assembly: Act C of 2012 on the Criminal Code
  • 📖 National Assembly: Fundamental Law of Hungary
  • 📖 Council of Europe: European Convention on Human Rights
  • 📖 Joseph Raz: The Authority of Law

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Administration of justice (programme points; programme point ID: I3, I5, I10)
  • MIAK policy area: Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points; programme point ID: A6)
  • MIAK policy area: Public security and law enforcement (programme points; programme point ID: KB3)
  • MIAK press monitor, 2 September 2026 — topic 1, score: 95/100

Supplementary public data sources:

  • Directive (EU) 2024/1260 of the European Parliament and of the Council on asset recovery and confiscation
  • Case law of the European Court of Human Rights on non-conviction based confiscation (Gogitidze v. Georgia, Todorov and Others v. Bulgaria)

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