Lawyer Adrienn Laczo’s office in Budapest’s XII district is simply but elegantly decorated. Paintings hang on the dark gray walls. On her desk is a glass trophy from the association Mensa HungarIQa for highly gifted people.
Although she has not been a lawyer for very long, Laczo is currently one of the most high-profile jurists in Hungary.
Laczo came to sudden prominence late last November when she posted on Facebook that after 24 years as a judge, she had no choice but to resign from her post.
“In Hungary, the independence of the judiciary has been abolished,” she told DW.
Judges in unprecedented protest
Although it is no secret in Hungary that the country’s judiciary has been in a state of ferment for quite some time, very little concrete information ever reaches the public.
It is highly unusual that someone from inside the system speaks as openly as Adrienn Laczo is doing now.
But she is certainly not alone: At the end of February, hundreds of judges, supporters and relatives demonstrated outside the Justice Ministry on Kossuth Square in Budapest.
This was unprecedented in Hungary and — with the notable exception of Poland a few years ago — a very rare occurrence in Europe as a whole.
The Hungarian judges took to the streets to defend the independence of the judiciary. They also called for better pay because people who work in the Hungarian judiciary are among the worst paid in this field in Europe.
Pressure on judges not to demonstrate
Generally speaking, it takes courage to protest in public against the system of Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Hungary these days. Such a move can have a negative impact on a person’s job and career prospects.
In the case of Hungary’s judges, the risk was even greater.
In the runup to the protest, the well-known pro-government writer and Orban ally Zsolt Bayer demanded that a list of all those taking part in the rally should be drawn up.
This did not deter Adrienn Laczo: She was among the demonstrators in Budapest.
Laczo says that the fact that so many joined the protest despite the threat of their names being added to a list is an illustration of the level of discontent among Hungary’s 2,600 judges.
“I know many who feel like I do, but who try to act as if they are passing judgment in a vacuum,” she said. “It’s their profession, and they love their work, so, they try to survive.”
Long inner battle
She says that she too fought an inner battle for many years before going public.
She told DW that she first had the feeling that something was not right in 2012 when Orban’s government introduced compulsory retirement for judges. As a result, hundreds of highly experienced judges aged between 62 and 70 in senior positions in the judiciary were forced into retirement.
“This created uncertainty in the institution, and younger judges were rewarded by being given the vacated posts,” she said.
Although Orban’s government reversed the decision in 2013 as a result of pressure from EU institutions, many judges who had been forced into retirement did not return to their earlier posts. For many, it was too late.
“In other words, the government achieved its objective,” said Laczo.
‘Lack of expertise and experience’
The former judge says that pressure on the courts has increased since then, in particular over the past five to six years.
She explained what form this pressure takes: “It is not as if someone calls up a judge who is working on a politically explosive case and tells him or her what judgment is expected,” she said. “It is more a case of some judges climbing the hierarchy faster, and others being left behind. Those who pass judgments that please the government, progress more quickly.”
Laczo sees the Curia, the Supreme Court of Hungary, as a prime example of this. She says that many judges at the Supreme Court lack the expertise and experience needed for the job.
For example, Laczo says, the president of the Curia was appointed without ever having worked as a judge, which means his appointment was a political decision. This, she says, is reflected in his work.
Landmark media case
A media case from 2024 shows for what Orban and his government use a compliant judicial system, which includes above all institutions like the Curia.
The CEO of the Austrian supermarket chain Spar told the specialist magazine Lebensmittel Zeitung that Viktor Orban had suggested to him that he should give a relative a stake in Spar’s Hungarian subsidiary. Many Hungarian media reported on the article in the German newspaper.
Orban responded by filing lawsuits against all Hungarian media that had reported the story. He lost the case in the first instance.
However, two newspapers later lost an appeal at the Curia. The reason given was that they should have checked whether the assertions made by Spar’s CEO were true.
According to Adrienn Laczo, with this ruling, the Curia has shaped rulings in future similar media cases and has created possible restrictions for the work of Hungarian journalists. The reason being that a law was passed in 2020 stating that lower courts must have a special justification for deviating from rulings of the Curia.
International support for the protesting judges
Whether the judges’ public protest — the first of its kind in Hungary — will change the situation in the judiciary remains to be seen.
However, there is already widespread international support for the protest. For example, the president of the International Association of Judges, Duro Sessa, spoke at the rally at the end of February. Moreover, in the dispute over deficiencies in Hungary’s judiciary, the EU has long withheld funds for Hungary.
Adrienn Laczo’s view of the situation is stark and unequivocal: “With regard to the judiciary in Hungary, the rule of law no longer exists because the organizational independence of the judiciary has been abolished,” she says. “Even the individual independence of judges is severely at risk. And that means that without an independent judiciary, there is no protective mechanism for Hungarian citizens.”
Even though Laczo is delighted to be a lawyer and is not afraid of any smear campaigns against herself or her family, she admits that working as a lawyer is just a substitute for what she originally wanted to do.
“Being a judge was my dream job, and I would have loved to continue working as a judge right up to retirement. But it simply wasn’t possible any more,” she said.
This article was originally published in German.
