Part I — Situation overview

On Parliament’s Monday sitting day three justice-related proposals were on the agenda: the act on the Historical Archives of the State Security Services (ÁBTL) and the publicity of agent files, the act aligning the operation of the Constitutional Court with the Seventeenth Amendment to the Fundamental Law, and the package amending certain justice-related acts. According to Portfolio’s Sunday summary, MPs may adopt all three on Tuesday. On the same Monday Parliament’s Committee on Justice and Constitutional Affairs hears the five candidates for constitutional judge; the secret ballot is also expected on Tuesday. The third proposal received the least attention, although it brings two changes pointing in opposite directions: it ends the online publicity of court hearings, and it transposes the EU directive against manifestly unfounded or abusive lawsuits that hinder public participation (SLAPP suits, from the English abbreviation).

Online publicity is a new institution. Act XLIX of 2025 introduced it into civil, administrative and criminal procedure from 1 January 2026; the Justice Minister’s decree containing the detailed rules made it actually possible from 9 February 2026 for the audience to follow hearings on the internet. The conditions were strict: registration required electronic identification, a hearing could be followed by at most the first hundred applicants, and the image of the broadcast was marked with a unique identifier linked to the viewer. The government submitted the current proposal on 17 August. According to its explanatory memorandum, the original aims — supporting social oversight, legal education and research — do not justify maintaining the system. According to the government, the system poses a disproportionate risk to the timeliness of proceedings, the undisturbed taking of evidence, the protection of personal data and the functioning of the courts. The National Judicial Council (OBT), the self-governing body of judges, already called the rule misguided when it was introduced: according to Index’s report it feared that besides the registered viewer, unknown persons — even witnesses not yet heard — could follow the hearing. According to the opposition, full abolition is not justified. MIAK’s analysis of 12 September 2026 on the selection yardstick for electing constitutional judges did not yet deal with the publicity of the courtroom; the present question is independent of it.

MIAK’s reading: both sides have arguments, and precisely for this reason the form of the decision is the mistake. The judges’ concern about influencing witnesses is real, and justified for the evidentiary stage. In the case of the delivery of a judgment or the legal debate of an administrative lawsuit, however, the same argument does not hold. The proposal asserts the risk in general terms, but does not say what happened during the eight months: how many hearings were followed online, and how many abuses became known. If the government puts the abolition of a transparency institution before Parliament without measurement, it makes the same mistake as the previous government did when it initiated its introduction without measurement.

Part II — Foundations in the literature

Three sources provide the framework in which narrowing publicity and protection against intimidating lawsuits can be interpreted together. Article 6 of the Council of Europe’s European Convention on Human Rights, signed in 1950 and in force in Hungary since 1993, lays down the right to a fair and public hearing, and in the same place lists specifically on what grounds the press and the public may be excluded. Restricting publicity is therefore not prohibited, but it is possible only on a named ground and proportionately. Joseph Raz, the Israeli-born Oxford legal philosopher, in The Authority of Law (1979) counts open and fair hearing and easy access to the courts among the formal principles of the rule of law, on the grounds that without them the law is unable to guide citizens’ conduct. Alexis de Tocqueville, the French political thinker, writes in the chapter on the liberty of the press in Democracy in America (1835–1840) that he values a free press not for the advantages it brings but for the evils it prevents — this is also the principled justification for the rule against intimidating lawsuits. The detailed treatment of the literature — by author, with quotations — is in section 6.4 Literature in detail.

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable measures. The first asks for a rule by case type instead of full abolition, the second supplies the data basis for the decision, and the third makes the effect of the new rule against intimidating lawsuits trackable.

3.1 An exception list by case type instead of full abolition (within 12 months of entry into force)

If Parliament adopts the proposal on Tuesday, MIAK proposes that the government submit a narrower, re-regulating bill within a year. Its starting point should be that online publicity does not carry the same risk at every procedural stage. The hearing of witnesses and experts, the evidentiary procedure and cases involving minors should not be available to follow online — here the judges’ concern is well-founded. What should remain online, however, is the delivery of the judgment, the presentation of legal arguments in administrative lawsuits, and those lawsuits in which one of the parties is a body exercising public authority or an organisation managing public money. The European Convention on Human Rights (see 6.4.1) describes exactly this kind of structure: publicity is the main rule, exclusion takes place on a named ground, and the judgment must be pronounced publicly. The proposal fits the I1 court transparency programme point, which set the goal of publishing 95 per cent of first-instance judgments online in anonymised form by 2027. And following the logic of the I10 constitutional stress test, it is worth asking: if a future majority narrowed the other elements of publicity too, citing “disproportionate risk”, what would set a limit? The list by case type fixes this limit.

3.2 Public evaluation of the eight months of online practice (by 31 December 2026)

MIAK proposes that the National Office for the Judiciary (OBH) and the Ministry of Justice publish by the end of the year the data for the period between 9 February 2026 and the abolition. These are: how many hearings were made available to follow online, by case type; how many registrations and actual log-ins took place; in how many cases the court refused online publicity, and for what reason; how many known abuses — unauthorised recording, forwarding, suspected influencing of witnesses — arose; and what the operating cost of the system was. The bill’s explanatory memorandum names four risks, but attaches a number to none of them. According to Raz’s argument (see 6.4.2) the accessibility of the courts is a basic condition of the rule of law, so restricting it cannot be a matter of mere assumption. The evaluation should appear in machine-readable form, in line with the D2 open data programme. If the data confirm the judges’ concerns, the range of procedural stages available to follow online under 3.1 will be narrower; if not, the range of exceptions can be reduced.

3.3 Annual public statement on intimidating lawsuits (first release by 30 June 2027)

The other element of the package, the transposition of Directive (EU) 2024/1069, is in MIAK’s view a correct and long overdue step: member states should have transposed it by 7 May 2026, so the deadline has already passed. The directive protects those — journalists, civil rights defenders, researchers — whom a stronger party tries to silence with a manifestly unfounded or abusive lawsuit. The effect of the new rule, however, can only be judged if it is measured. MIAK proposes that the OBH publish annually: how many lawsuits were brought by public figures or public authorities against press outlets, journalists and civil society organisations on grounds of personality rights or press correction; how many of these the court dismissed under the new early dismissal rule; what the average duration of proceedings was; and in how many cases the court ordered the claimant to reimburse costs. This is a measurable supplement to the A7 media pluralism programme point, and could be one of the indicators of the institutional health report on checks and balances under A6. According to Tocqueville’s thesis (see 6.4.3) the value of a free press lies in the evils it prevents — a fall in the number of intimidating lawsuits signals exactly such a prevented evil.

The three proposals are bound together by the same principle: expanding and narrowing publicity are both measurable decisions, and both must be judged by the same yardstick. Whoever protects public debate in one field — by pushing back intimidating lawsuits — must also show in the other — in the courtroom — that the restriction responds to a concrete, named and verified risk.

Part IV — Expected effects and risks

Dimension Expected effect Risk
Justice The list by case type preserves the undisturbed taking of evidence, while social oversight of the delivery of judgments and of lawsuits of public interest is retained Technical equipment is uneven across courts; operating partial online publicity places an additional burden on court staff
Society and the press The evaluation of the online experiment bases the debate on facts; the statement on intimidating lawsuits makes the actual state of press freedom visible If the narrowing of publicity happens in the same week as the opening of the agent files, the public may see the government’s transparency policy as inconsistent
Public administration and data protection Machine-readable data publication fits into the open data programme Publishing hearing data — especially at smaller courts — carries a re-identification risk, so publication at aggregate level is necessary

The main dilemma lies between two elements of a fair trial: publicity serves the verifiability of the court, and the undisturbed taking of evidence serves the correct decision. MIAK’s proposal does not claim that the judges are wrong, but that the risk differs by procedural stage, so the rule must differ too. The proposal tips towards the risk side if the re-regulation under 3.1 does not happen and the full abolition meant to be temporary becomes permanent — or if the evaluation under 3.2 is not prepared and the next debate is again built on assumptions. For the statement on intimidating lawsuits the risk is that the categories of “public figure” and “abusive lawsuit” may be disputed; for this reason, in the first years MIAK proposes indicators based on actual court decisions — early dismissal, reimbursement of costs — rather than on qualitative classification.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth following? (suggested KPIs)

MIAK proposes four performance indicators (KPIs, in English: Key Performance Indicator) from which it will be visible in 6, 12 and 24 months whether the proposals have been implemented:

  • Publication of the evaluation of the online experiment: the suggested target is that by 31 December 2026 the number of hearings followed online by case type, the number of registrations and the number of abuses that became known be public.
  • Submission of the re-regulation by case type: it is worth following whether, within 12 months of the abolition entering into force, a bill is submitted that restores at least the online publicity of the delivery of judgments.
  • Online availability of anonymised judgments: the suggested target is the 95 per cent rate under the I1 programme point by the end of 2027; narrowing one channel of publicity should not come with slowing down the other.
  • Statement on intimidating lawsuits: the suggested target is that by 30 June 2027 the first annual release appear on the number of lawsuits brought by public figures against the press and civil society organisations, and on the rate of early dismissals and cost-reimbursement orders.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s request to Parliament and the government is simple: the online publicity of court hearings should be decided not by a single yes–no vote, but by a rule fixed by procedural stage. For this, it must first be made public what happened in the eight months of online following. MIAK supports the transposition of the EU rule against intimidating lawsuits, but its effect must be measured annually, otherwise it will not emerge whether the number of lawsuits against journalists and civil society organisations has really fallen.

Two MIAK foundational values are at stake. Transparency, because the publicity of the court serves not the court’s convenience but citizens’ right of oversight — it can be restricted, but only on a named ground. Data-drivenness, because the proposal’s explanatory memorandum asserts four risks but quantifies none; abolishing a transparency institution requires evidence just as much as introducing it did.

Part VI — Reasoning and further sources

6.1 Press framing by spectrum

In the economic segment, Portfolio’s Sunday article presented the week in news-agency style, as an agenda list: it placed the agent files act, the operating rules of the Constitutional Court and the justice package side by side, and mentioned in a single sentence that the latter would end the online publicity of hearings. The article added no analysis or assessment; the emphasis was on the parliamentary timetable.

In the public-affairs and left-liberal segment, attention was directed almost entirely at the candidates for constitutional judge. ATV, besides presenting the candidates, highlighted the criticism of constitutional lawyer Péter Hack, who said that nomination is the right of the parliamentary groups, so it is strange that the list was announced by the Prime Minister. HVG asked whether Miklós Ligeti’s nomination is “sidelining or promotion”, and also quoted opinions from the comment sections. 444.hu presented the candidates in an ironic portrait series, and 24.hu published a report from the archive holding the agent files. None of the papers highlighted the abolition of online publicity on today’s front pages; it was dealt with substantively by Index’s article at the end of August, which set out the government’s justification, the OBT’s opposing position and the opposition’s objection alike.

In the conservative segment, Magyar Nemzet framed the parliamentary week as a “mass production” by the governing majority, and in a separate article attacked one of the candidates for constitutional judge over a 2007 criminal-law study. The paper did not deal with the publicity element of the justice package in today’s selection. Common to the whole spectrum is that personnel questions overshadowed the institutional rule that affects the functioning of the courts in the longer term.

6.2 Facts and data

Datum Value Source
Plenary debate of the three justice proposals 14 September 2026 (Monday); adoption expected on Tuesday Portfolio, 13 September 2026
Committee hearing of the candidates for constitutional judge 14 September 2026, secret ballot on 15 September 2026 ATV, 14 September 2026
The candidates the governing party group nominated five, Mi Hazánk five candidates; the Fidesz group made no nominations ATV, 444.hu, 13–14 September 2026
Introduction of online publicity Act XLIX of 2025, with effect from 1 January 2026; the detailed rules apply from 9 February 2026 eGov Hírlevél, 1 November 2025; mínuszos.hu
Cap on the online audience per hearing, the first hundred electronically identified adult registrants Index, 29 August 2026
Submission of the abolishing proposal 17 August 2026, after public consultation Index, 29 August 2026; kormany.hu
Grounds for abolition according to the proposal disproportionate risk to timeliness, the undisturbed taking of evidence, the protection of personal data and the functioning of the courts kormany.hu; Index, 29 August 2026
EU legislation to be transposed Directive (EU) 2024/1069 on protecting persons who engage in public participation from manifestly unfounded claims or abusive court proceedings mínuszos.hu; kormany.hu
Online availability of anonymised first-instance judgments according to the MIAK programme point currently around 40%, target 95% by 2027 MIAK policy area: Justice (programme points)

One data point requires a separate note. Neither the proposal’s explanatory memorandum nor the press reports give a figure for how many hearings were actually followed online since the launch in February 2026, and how many abuses became known. This gap is the direct reason for proposal 3.2.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Justice (programme points) — weighing court publicity against a fair trial: I1 (court transparency) provides the target value for publishing judgments online, I10 (constitutional stress test) the question of whether the narrowing would hold up under an opposite majority, and I4 (judicial independence) the institutional weight of the OBT’s position;
  • Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points) — protection against intimidating lawsuits and institutional counterweights: within the framework of A7 (media pluralism) and A6 (checks and balances);
  • Digitalisation and AI regulation (programme points) — machine-readable publication of the data of the online experiment under D2 (open data);
  • Public administration and e-government (background material) — the experience of online participation tied to electronic identification as a digital public service.

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 Council of Europe: European Convention on Human Rights

Article 6 of the Convention lays down the right to a fair trial in two layers. According to the first sentence, everyone is entitled to have their case heard fairly, publicly and within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal. The second sentence lists the exceptions, and at the same time also what cannot be an exception:

“Judgment shall be pronounced publicly but the press and public may be excluded from all or part of the trial in the interests of morals, public order or national security in a democratic society, where the interests of juveniles or the protection of the private life of the parties so require, or to the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice.”

The structure of the text offers three lessons. Publicity is the main rule, exclusion is an exception requiring justification. Exclusion may also apply to “part of” the trial — so the Convention itself presupposes weighing stage by stage. And the delivery of the judgment is not among the elements that may be excluded. The Convention speaks of the public present at the hearing and makes no provision on online following; the Hungarian decision therefore does not violate it directly. The logic of the exceptions, however, provides a yardstick: among the risks listed in the proposal’s explanatory memorandum, the undisturbed taking of evidence and the protection of private life correspond to the Convention’s grounds, but “disproportionate operational burden” is not among them. This is why MIAK proposes that online publicity should not end in its entirety, but be retained in stages aligned with the Convention’s exceptions.

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

6.4.2 Joseph Raz: The Authority of Law

The essay on the rule of law in Raz’s volume defines the concept in a formal sense: the rule of law is not the ideal of good law, but the set of conditions under which the law is able to guide citizens’ conduct at all. He lists eight principles — the law should be prospective (not retroactive), public, clear and stable — and among them there are two principles that relate directly to the courts. The fifth principle is the requirement of natural justice:

“Open and fair hearing, absence of bias, and the like are obviously essential for the correct application of the law.”

According to the seventh principle the courts should be easily accessible, because long delays or excessive costs can turn even the best law into a dead letter. At the same time Raz stresses that conformity to the rule of law is a matter of degree: a rule can be more or less open, and some restrictions violate the principle only formally, not its spirit.

Applied to the Hungarian debate: ending online publicity does not end the publicity of the hearing — the courtroom remains open — but it reduces accessibility for those who live far away, are working or have limited mobility. In Raz’s gradual conception the question is therefore not whether the rule of law is violated, but by how much access is reduced, and what weight of verified risk justifies this. Only the data under 3.2 can answer this.

📖 Source: Joseph Raz: The Authority of Law

6.4.3 Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America

In the first volume of his work on American democracy Tocqueville devotes a separate chapter to the political effects of the liberty of the press. His position is surprisingly reserved: he is not an enthusiastic supporter of an unlimited press, because he sees the abuses. Yet he rejects intermediate solutions, because in his view no tenable point can be found between complete independence and complete subjection of the press that would not slide towards the latter. He sums up his weighing in a single sentence:

“I confess that I do not entertain that firm and complete attachment to the liberty of the press which things that are supremely good in their very nature are wont to excite in the mind; and I approve of it more from a recollection of the evils it prevents than from a consideration of the advantages it ensures.”

This thought describes precisely the logic of the rule against intimidating lawsuits. Such a lawsuit does not ban the press, but disciplines it through cost and uncertainty: long, expensive proceedings are a punishment in themselves, regardless of the outcome. Early dismissal and reimbursement of costs prevent the evil that Tocqueville considered the main value of the liberty of the press. This is why transposing the rule is not enough; the annual statement under 3.3 shows whether there really are fewer lawsuits aimed at silencing.

📖 Source: Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America

6.5 International comparison

There is no uniform European model for broadcasting court hearings, but a common feature of the practices is that the decision is tied to the procedural stage. In the United Kingdom the hearings of the appellate courts and the supreme court have long been broadcast, and in criminal cases recording the judge’s sentencing remarks is permitted, while the hearing of witnesses and defendants cannot be broadcast. In Germany the delivery of judgments by the federal courts may be recorded under certain conditions, the evidentiary stage may not. MIAK’s proposal follows this pattern: the legal argument and the judgment are public, the undisturbed position of the witness is protected.

The EU directive against intimidating lawsuits sets a minimum standard, but member states transpose it to different depths; several member states extend the protection beyond cross-border cases to domestic lawsuits as well. MIAK’s proposed indicator matters because comparable data between member states on the effect of the directive is barely available today, so the Hungarian annual statement could also be useful for the EU-level evaluation.

Justice

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

Transparency and anti-corruption policy

  • A6 — Reinforcement of checks and balances
  • A7 — Media pluralism as an institutional guarantee

Digitalisation and AI regulation

  • D2 — Open data programme

Proposed new programme point: Stage-by-stage online court publicity and an annual statement on intimidating lawsuits — for the Justice policy area: regulation of online followability by procedural stage (delivery of judgments and lawsuits of public interest online, evidentiary stage not), together with annual public statistics on lawsuits brought by public figures against the press and civil society organisations.

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK press monitor, 14 September 2026 — topic 1):

Knowledge-base references (books):

  • 📖 Council of Europe: European Convention on Human Rights
  • 📖 Joseph Raz: The Authority of Law
  • 📖 Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Justice (programme points; programme point ID: I1, I4, I10)
  • MIAK policy area: Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points; programme point ID: A6, A7)
  • MIAK policy area: Digitalisation and AI regulation (programme points; programme point ID: D2)
  • MIAK policy area: Public administration and e-government (background material)
  • MIAK press monitor, 14 September 2026 — topic 1, score: 93/100

Supplementary public data sources:

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