Parbeszed to appeal to Constitutional Court over ‘public hearings without audience’

Parbeszed co-leader Bence Tordai told an online press conference on Monday that the government had used Hungary’s special legal order introduced earlier with regard to the war in Ukraine to overrun relevant regulations “and even the constitution itself” concerning “a matter totally unrelated to the war or its impacts”. He added that the government “had no authorisation” to do so.

The new institution is a “bad joke … legal nonsense”, Tordai said and insisted that local governments led by ruling Fidesz intended to put in practice public hearings which the public could not attend. The new mechanism “obviously violates fundamental democratic rights,” he said, adding that public hearings “are the second strongest instrument of participatory democracy after referenda”.