Hungary¶
The Hungarian cases show a machine of stigma and surveillance being dismantled by the same means that built it. A constitutional supermajority installed it and another is removing it, with practice in places running ahead of law, and an outside court supplying the verdict the domestic institutions did not. Dismantling by supermajority confirms the method it undoes: whoever holds two-thirds may rewrite the rules alone.
The clerk’s briefs¶
From the clerks, for the Patrician’s eyes
Read these. Those the office investigated do not know what becomes of the files about them, and anyone identified at a banned event does not know what became of the images. LGBTQ people and Pride’s organisers are protected by a police decision rather than a law until the constitution catches up. Organisations that kept away from foreign funding to avoid scrutiny may stay away while the method survives. A future two-thirds could rebuild what this one takes apart and would find the archive waiting; a law on the files and the camera records would close that door.
October 2026: The child-protection law rewritten¶
On 13 October 2026 parliament approved amendments to the 2021 child-protection law, without opposition support. The original barred material accessible to children from “depicting” or “promoting” sexual and gender diversity; the revised law targets content that could “seriously impair the child’s physical, intellectual, emotional or moral development”. The clerks note that the stigma has been taken out of this statute, and that the report does not say what became of the assembly-law changes built on it.
June 2026: The office closes¶
On 30 June 2026 the Hungarian parliament voted by 135 to 44, with six abstentions, to abolish the Sovereignty Protection Office. The bill gave the office’s true purpose as exerting “pressure on citizens, certain organizations and media outlets for political purposes”. Its ongoing proceedings end, and the Ministry of Justice becomes its legal successor without continuing its work “in any form”. Closing it first required, as IPI noted, an amendment to the Fundamental Law removing the 2023 constitutional provision that established it; IPI called for a parliamentary inquiry into the office’s practices. The report does not say what becomes of the files the office gathered. The clerks note that an office can be closed by a vote, and that its archive needs a decision of its own.
June 2026: Pride goes ahead¶
Budapest police did not ban the Pride parade of 27 June 2026, unlike the year before, though the 2025 restrictions had also been written into the constitution and the new government had taken no steps to repeal them by the end of May. The clerks note that the law and the practice now point in different directions.
April 2026: Luxembourg rules¶
On 21 April 2026 the EU Court of Justice, sitting as a full court, found that Hungary’s 2021 law restricting content portraying homosexuality and gender identity to minors “manifestly and particularly seriously violates every single core value of the EU laid down in Article 2 TEU”, the first standalone finding of a breach of that article. The clerks note that a court named the first step of the historical record as a breach of the Union’s founding values.
March 2025: The camera at the march¶
On 18 March 2025 parliament voted by 136 to 27 to make it an offence to hold or attend events that violate the country’s “child protection” legislation, with fines of up to 200,000 forints for attending. “Authorities may use facial recognition tools to identify individuals attending a prohibited event.” The clerks observe that the law did two things at once: it moved stigmatisation from speeches into the statute book, and it allowed every attendee to be identified, whether or not anyone ever was.
December 2023: An office for sovereignty¶
On 12 December 2023 parliament passed, by 141 votes to 50, Act LXXXVIII of 2023 on the Protection of National Sovereignty, which set up a Sovereignty Protection Office “to carry out investigations”. It also made the use of “prohibited foreign funds for campaigning purposes” by candidates a crime, punishable by up to three years in prison. The clerks note that suspicion of foreign ties now has an office of its own.