Part I — Situation overview

Two independent cases point to the same structural question. According to 444.hu’s article of 17 September 2026, Pál Fürcht, former head of the Central Investigating Chief Prosecutor’s Office (KNYF), claimed in a seven-page document dated 8 June justifying his resignation that in two major cases informal pressure had been applied, bypassing him, to ensure that the investigation would not extend in certain directions. According to the document a senior official of the Office of the Prosecutor General “did not in fact give orders to his subordinate, but instructions” — that is, he shaped the procedure in such a way as to leave no written trace. In a statement issued the same day the Office of the Prosecutor General firmly rejected the claims: in its view the former chief prosecutor “stated factual untruths about the political influencing of cases”, and refuting them is not possible at present in view of the ongoing cases. According to the statement the former head wanted to assert his own conviction instead of professional guidance. Disciplinary proceedings against Pál Fürcht are in progress. The claim and the denial stand against each other; MIAK cannot determine the truth of either, nor is that its task.

Two days later, on 19 September, the second item of news came in another case. According to reports by 444.hu and Telex, the chief prosecutor of Baranya county was excluded from supervising the investigation into the overpriced bus procurement in Pécs, because he himself declared bias: he personally knows Erik Bánki, member of parliament, whose name recurs as a witness at various points of the case. The subject of the proceedings is that the transport company of the Pécs municipality bought 115 used buses from the Netherlands through an intermediary company in the mid-2010s; according to the charge the city suffered damage of some 650 million forints, and two defendants in the case have already been convicted by final judgment.

MIAK’s reading: the contrast between the two cases is the essential point. In the first, the shaping of the procedure is alleged to have happened without a trace; in the second, the person concerned declared the bias himself, and the exclusion took place by a formal, documented decision. The difference lies not in the character of the individuals but in the fact that in one case there was a written procedure and, according to the complaint, in the other there was not. The prosecution service is an independent constitutional body (Article 29 of the Fundamental Law), the prosecutor general accepts instructions from no one in individual cases, and reports to the National Assembly — which is precisely why an allegation of internal influence touches the most sensitive point of the system: here there is no external competence to provide a remedy. The character of the problem is therefore procedural: the path of a case and the handling of bias are not today governed by a comprehensively public rule laid down in advance.

Part II — Foundations in the literature

Three works illuminate the three layers of the topic. Joseph Raz (Israeli-British legal philosopher, one of the leading figures of legal positivism) describes the rule of law in his volume of essays The Authority of Law (1979) as a formal virtue, and sets it out in eight principles. The eighth principle deals expressly with the discretionary power of crime-preventing agencies: the decision-making freedom of the prosecuting authority must not pervert the law itself. Susan Rose-Ackerman (American lawyer and economist, a leading researcher of the political economy of corruption) shows in her book Corruption and Government (1999) that anti-corruption rules that are impeccable on paper are ineffective in themselves if there is no independent prosecuting authority and honest judicial system behind them. At the same time she warns that a strong and independent investigative body can itself be used for political purposes. Robert Klitgaard (American economist, author of the structural model of corruption) sums up the conditions of abuse in his work Controlling Corruption (1988) in a simple formula: monopoly, discretion and missing accountability. He also shows that a rule can be an instrument for narrowing discretion, not only a source of corruption. 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 makes the path of a case predictable in advance, the second automates the handling of bias, and the third expands public accounting. All three can be implemented at the level of legislation and internal rules with full respect for the constitutional autonomy of the prosecution service — none of them means government intervention in individual cases.

3.1 A case allocation scheme announced in advance and made public, with written reasons for any departure (internal rules from 1 January 2027)

MIAK proposes that the prosecution service — following the model of the courts’ case allocation scheme — should announce in advance a public rule on which types of case go to which body and which prosecutor, and on who supervises the investigation. The rule should contain the objective criteria of allocation (jurisdiction, field of specialisation, caseload), and should lay down that departures from it are possible only with written reasons placed among the documents of the case. A departure is not in itself irregular — the nature of cases may make it necessary — the essential thing is that a trace should remain. This is precisely the point at which the claim made in the Fürcht case and the denial by the Office of the Prosecutor General could be separated: if every change of supervision and every item of professional guidance is in the file in writing and dated, then the question of “instruction versus order” does not remain undecidable: it is not claim against claim, but the document that decides. The proposal transfers to the prosecuting authority the logic of the I1 programme point aimed at judicial transparency. Klitgaard’s proposition (see 6.4.3) is directly applicable here: a rule reduces risk if it narrows discretion or makes it documentable — not because there are more rules.

3.2 A conflict-of-interest register and automatic bias screening (legislation and establishment of the register in the first half of 2027)

MIAK proposes that a conflict-of-interest register be created for those in senior prosecutorial posts, recording material personal and business relationships separately from the asset declaration system. The case allocation system should automatically compare the data of the participants in a case with this register, and in the event of a match the head of the proceedings should be obliged to declare whether bias exists and, if so, to initiate his or her exclusion. The content of the register should not be public in its entirety — the protection of personal data is a legitimate limit here — but the number of matches and of the exclusions resulting from them should be published annually in aggregate. The Baranya case shows precisely that the system can work: the person concerned declared the bias himself, and the exclusion took place. MIAK’s proposal adds that this should not depend on individual conscience. This is the prosecution service application of the A6 strengthening of checks and balances programme point, and, extended to law enforcement bodies, it connects to the asset declaration monitoring element of the KB7 internal oversight reform.

3.3 An expanded, substantive report to the National Assembly and annual public case statistics (by amending the act on the prosecution service, during 2027)

MIAK proposes that an amendment of the act on the prosecution service should expand in substance the prosecutor general’s obligation to report to the National Assembly. The report should mandatorily contain public statistics broken down by type of case: the number of ongoing and closed cases, the average duration of procedural stages, the number of cases terminated because of limitation, the aggregate number of changes of supervision and of exclusions for bias, and the number and outcome of disciplinary proceedings. The statistics should not contain data relating to any individual case — the publicity of ongoing cases is limited by the rules of criminal procedure, and that limit is legitimate. Aggregate data, however, do not infringe it. This route is constitutionally clean: it is not the government that gains influence over prosecutorial decisions, but the National Assembly and the public that receive more information on how the body as a whole operates. Rose-Ackerman’s analysis (see 6.4.2) warns precisely of this: an independent prosecuting authority is necessary, but is no guarantee in itself — credibility comes from long-term, verifiable commitment. The proposal also serves the data needs of the A6 institutional independence index and of the I10 constitutional stress test.

The three proposals share the principle that trust attaches not to persons but to procedures. Raz’s formal conception of the rule of law says exactly this: law can guide conduct if it is knowable in advance and predictable — and this requirement applies not only to legislation but also to the procedure of the bodies applying the law.

Part IV — Expected effects and risks

Dimension Expected effect Risk
Justice system An announced case allocation scheme makes disputes about influence decidable; the documentary trace can be checked afterwards A rigid allocation rule may make professionally justified reassignment of cases inflexible if the procedure for departures is too cumbersome
Transparency Annual case statistics quantify the limitation and capacity risk that today can only be guessed at from individual cases It may create an incentive to improve statistical indicators at the expense of substantive quality (more quick closures, fewer complex cases)
Public trust Automatic bias screening does not leave the decision to the good faith of the person concerned The register carries a data protection risk; misinterpretation of matches could give rise to unfounded suspicion
Public-law structure The expanded report opens towards the public without touching prosecutorial autonomy Parliamentary reporting could become a political arena if the debate is not about the data but about individual cases

The main trade-off lies between predictability and flexibility. Cases are of course not all alike: a complicated economic case requires a specialised prosecutor, and caseloads also change. In MIAK’s view the solution is therefore not to prohibit departures but to document them. The proposal tips to the risk side if the public statistics begin to be used as performance measurement broken down to individual prosecutors — this would bring the same distortion that international experience shows in judicial performance measurement: encouraging quick closure at the expense of complex cases. The indicators should therefore be published at organisational level and by type of case, not broken down by person.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth following? (suggested KPIs)

MIAK proposes the following key performance indicators (KPIs) for monitoring. These are proposals, not government decisions:

  • Whether the public case allocation scheme is announced by 1 January 2027, and whether it also extends to the supervision of investigations (yes/no).
  • The number of departures from the case allocation scheme and the share of cases accompanied by written reasons — the latter should approach full coverage.
  • The number of cases terminated because of limitation, by type of case, annually — a declining path is worth expecting.
  • The number of recommendations concerning the prosecution service in the Hungarian justice chapter of the European Commission’s annual rule of law report, and the rate of their fulfilment.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s request in a single sentence: the credibility of the prosecution service’s operation should be restored not by a change of personnel but by a case allocation scheme announced in advance, automatic bias screening and a substantively expanded, public report. As long as the path of a case is not governed by a written rule, every allegation of influence will remain undecidable — and undecidability in itself damages trust, regardless of who is right.

Two of MIAK’s foundational values are at stake in this topic. Accountability, because the autonomy of the prosecution service is a constitutional value, but autonomy is not the same as immunity from scrutiny: MIAK’s proposal seeks precisely how scrutiny can be strengthened without taking the form of intervention in individual cases. And transparency, because in the present dispute the public can inform itself only from a resignation document and a statement — that is, from what the two sides claim about each other. Without regular, aggregate data the public can do nothing with these claims, and the matter becomes a question of faith along party lines.

Part VI — Reasoning and further sources

6.1 Press framing by spectrum

The left-liberal segment carried the story, and this also follows from the nature of the topic: the resignation document was shared with 444.hu by the lawyer representing the former chief prosecutor. The paper covered the matter in two articles — in the first it published the claims, in the second the reaction of the Office of the Prosecutor General, setting out the denial in full and noting that it had approached the body before publication. The framing was therefore not one-sided, but the emphasis clearly remained on the weight of the claim: according to the paper this is probably the first time a senior prosecutorial official has publicly described such a method. The Baranya case was brought by the same segment, and by Telex, following a social media post by a former member of parliament, and the news was placed in the context of the long-running Pécs bus procurement proceedings.

The public-affairs segment focused on the investigative threads: on ATV’s programme the question was the influencing of the investigation of the two cases mentioned by name, that is, it broke the story down into the individual cases. This approach captures public interest better, but is less suited to raising the structural question.

The conservative segment did not bring the topic into its main focus on that day: neither the content of the resignation document nor the Baranya exclusion appeared in substantive coverage. There may be several explanations for this — the internal operation of the prosecuting authority is traditionally a topic of low news value — but the absence is itself a signal: the question of prosecutorial procedure is not at present among the matters on which the whole spectrum of the Hungarian press speaks a common language. This is partly why MIAK’s proposal is procedural and not personal: procedural rules are terrain on which agreement is possible regardless of party allegiance.

6.2 Facts and data

Data Value Source
Date and length of the resignation document 8 June 2026, seven pages 444.hu, 17 September 2026
Date of the resignation early June 2026, about a month after the change of government 444.hu, 17 September 2026
Body headed by the former chief prosecutor Central Investigating Chief Prosecutor’s Office, since 2022 444.hu, 17 September 2026
Position of the Office of the Prosecutor General the claims are “factually untrue”, refuting them is not possible at present because of the ongoing cases statement of the Office of the Prosecutor General, 444.hu, 17 September 2026
Reason for the Baranya exclusion own declaration of bias because of personal acquaintance 444.hu and Telex, 19 September 2026
Subject of the Pécs bus procurement 115 used buses, through an intermediary company 444.hu, 19 September 2026
Damage established in the case according to the charge some HUF 650 million 444.hu, 19 September 2026
Number of persons convicted by final judgment in the case 2 defendants 444.hu, 19 September 2026
Hungary’s governance quality indicator — control of corruption −0.17 (2024) World Bank, Worldwide Governance Indicators

The World Bank indicator belongs here because governance quality indices — on which the independence index of the A6 programme point also builds — indirectly measure the operation of the prosecuting authority too. A negative value is not in itself a judgment on the prosecution service, but it shows that improvement requires measurable institutional steps, not one-off cases.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Administration of justice (programme points) — I1 judicial transparency provides the model for the public case allocation scheme and for organisation-level statistics, and the I10 constitutional stress test the annual framework into which prosecutorial indicators can be fitted; an important distinction is that the prosecution service is not part of the judicial branch but an independent constitutional body — the programme points therefore serve as a model, not as a basis of competence;
  • Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points) — A6 strengthening of checks and balances assigns the measurable independence indicators, and A10 the independent corruption investigation office, the longer-term institutional question for which the present procedural proposals create a precondition;
  • Public security and law enforcement (programme points) — the rotating internal audit and asset declaration monitoring of the KB7 anti-corruption internal oversight reform is the law enforcement counterpart of the conflict-of-interest register.

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 Joseph Raz: The Authority of Law

Raz deliberately defines the rule of law narrowly, as a formal virtue: law conforms to it if it is capable of guiding the conduct of those to whom it applies. From this he derives his eight principles, the last of which deals directly with the prosecuting authority:

“The discretion of the crime-preventing agencies should not be allowed to pervert the law. […] The prosecution should not be allowed, for example, to decide not to prosecute for commission of certain crimes, or for crimes committed by certain classes of offenders.”

Raz adds that the principles fall into two groups: the first three concern the substantive form of the law (it should be prospective, public and clear), while the remaining five ensure that the machinery of enforcement does not deprive the law of its guiding capacity. The eighth principle therefore does not seek the abolition of prosecutorial discretion — that is unavoidable — but that discretion should not become a systemic overriding of the law. The logic of MIAK’s proposal follows from this: if the path of a case and every step of discretion are governed by written rules knowable in advance, and any departure requires reasons, then the possibility of discretion remains, but it cannot imperceptibly rewrite who the law applies to.

📖 Source: Joseph Raz: The Authority of Law — Essays on Law and Morality

6.4.2 Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government

In her chapter on anti-corruption institution building, Rose-Ackerman begins by saying that a good law is worth nothing in itself:

“Many countries have exemplary anticorruption statutes that are irrelevant in the real world. […] Even if a nation’s prosecutors are actively engaged, this will mean little unless the country has an honest judicial system.”

At the same time, writing about independent investigative bodies, the author also warns: in her view the success of the Hong Kong and Singapore examples depended on credible enforcement meaning a long-term commitment, and on the body being able to avoid use for political ends. An anti-corruption commission reporting to an autocratic leader, she writes, can become an instrument of repression against political opponents. The Hungarian lesson is twofold, and fits precisely the case now in dispute. First, prosecutorial independence is not an end but a means: it is worth something if the whole procedural chain — from investigation to the court stage — is predictable. Second, independence in itself does not exclude abuse either from outside the body or from within; that is why MIAK proposes that strengthening should come not through new powers but through the publicity of the procedure and the publication of aggregate data.

📖 Source: Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government — Causes, Consequences, and Reform

6.4.3 Robert Klitgaard: Controlling Corruption

Klitgaard sums up the conditions of abuse in a single, since widely quoted formula:

“Illicit behavior flourishes when agents have monopoly power over clients, when agents have great discretion, and when accountability of agents to the principal is weak. A stylized equation holds: CORRUPTION = MONOPOLY + DISCRETION − ACCOUNTABILITY.”

In the same place Klitgaard resolves an apparent contradiction: one expert position holds that more rules are needed to curb corruption, the other that the rules are themselves the instruments of corruption. The resolution is that a rule can be of two kinds — some create a monopoly, and some narrow discretion or make accountability easier. In the case of the prosecuting authority the monopoly is a given: the exercise of public prosecution is a constitutional monopoly, and it is not to be abolished. The other two terms of the formula, however, can be shaped. MIAK’s proposals target precisely these two terms: the announced case allocation scheme and the duty to give reasons make discretion traceable, while the conflict-of-interest register and the expanded report strengthen accountability.

📖 Source: Robert Klitgaard: Controlling Corruption

6.5 International comparison

The best-known European model for the public regulation of case allocation is German practice: at the courts the case allocation plan (Geschäftsverteilungsplan) is a document announced in advance each year, determining which case goes to which chamber, and departures during the year require a separate, reasoned decision. MIAK’s proposal would transfer this principle to the internal operation of the prosecuting authority, without touching the body’s autonomy. On the side of handling bias, Dutch and Scandinavian practice points the way: there the declarations of interest of office holders require regular updating, and the examination of conflicts of interest does not depend on the initiative of the person concerned. For the publicity of prosecution statistics the European Commission’s annual EU Justice Scoreboard provides a comparative framework: the methodology of the duration and caseload indicators published there could be adopted as it stands, so that Hungarian data could be interpreted not only on their own but also in European comparison.

Administration of justice

  • I1 — Judicial transparency
  • I10 — Constitutional “stress test”

Transparency and anti-corruption policy

  • A6 — Strengthening checks and balances
  • A10 — Independent Corruption Investigation Office (CPIB model)

Public security and law enforcement

  • KB7 — Anti-corruption internal oversight reform

Proposed new programme point: Public prosecutorial case allocation scheme and conflict-of-interest register — for the Administration of justice area, as the prosecuting-authority counterpart of the I1 transparency programme point.

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK press monitor, 20 September 2026 — topic 9):

  • [444.hu] Politikailag érzékeny ügyek nyomozását befolyásolták a Legfőbb Ügyészségen — írta lemondása indoklásában a volt főügyész — https://444.hu/2026/09/17/politikailag-erzekeny-ugyek-nyomozasat-befolyasoltak-a-legfobb-ugyeszsegen-irta-lemondasa-indoklasaban-a-volt-fougyesz
  • [444.hu] A Legfőbb Ügyészség szerint Fürcht Pál a lemondásában tényszerűen valótlanságokat állított az ügyek politikai befolyásolásáról — https://444.hu/2026/09/17/a-legfobb-ugyeszseg-szerint-furcht-pal-a-lemondasaban-tenyszeruen-valotlansagokat-allitott-az-ugyek-politikai-befolyasolasarol
  • [444.hu] Hadházy Ákos: Kizárták a nyomozás felügyeletéből a baranyai főügyészt — https://444.hu/2026/09/19/hadhazy-akos-kizartak-a-nyomozas-felugyeletebol-a-baranyai-fougyeszt-mert-a-banki-erikkel-valo-szemelyes-kapcsolata-miatt-elfogultsagot-jelentett-be
  • [Telex] A fideszes Bánki Erikkel való ismeretsége miatt kizárták a Baranya megyei főügyészt a pécsi buszbotrány újabb nyomozásából — https://telex.hu/belfold/2026/09/19/hadhazy-akos-volvo-pecs-buszbeszerzes-korrupcio-ugyeszseg-elfogultsag-banki-erik (the article was not publicly downloadable)
  • [ATV] Befolyásolta a nyomozásokat a Legfőbb Ügyészség az Aranykonvoj- és a Gundalf-ügyben? — https://www.atv.hu/videok/befolyasolta-a-nyomozasokat-a-legfobb-ugyeszseg-az-aranykonvoj-es-a-gundalf-ugyben/
  • [HVG] Miért nem hozhat gyors eredményt a vagyonvisszaszerzési hivatal a bíróságok megerősítése nélkül? — https://hvg.hu/itthon/20260906_miert-nem-hozhat-gyors-eredmenyt-a-vagyonvisszaszerzesi-hivatal-a-birosagok-megerositese-nelkul-elvitelre

Knowledge-base references (books):

  • 📖 Joseph Raz: The Authority of Law — Essays on Law and Morality
  • 📖 Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government — Causes, Consequences, and Reform
  • 📖 Robert Klitgaard: Controlling Corruption

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Administration of justice (programme points; programme point ID: I1, I10)
  • MIAK policy area: Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points; programme point ID: A6, A10)
  • MIAK policy area: Public security and law enforcement (programme points; programme point ID: KB7)
  • MIAK legal foundations (background material) — the constitutional status of the prosecution service and the prosecutor general’s reporting regime
  • MIAK press monitor, 20 September 2026 — topic 9, score: 81/100

Supplementary public data sources:

  • Annual reports of the Office of the Prosecutor General to the National Assembly
  • European Commission — annual rule of law report, Hungarian justice chapter
  • Venice Commission — CDL-AD opinions on the independence of the prosecution service
  • GRECO fourth and fifth evaluation round reports on Hungary
  • World Bank — Worldwide Governance Indicators

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