Читать книгу American Democracy in Context - Joseph A. Pika - Страница 85

How can a democracy handle a democratically elected government that intends to change the constitution in ways that make the country a less viable democracy? After the fall of Communism in 1989, Hungary embraced democracy and capitalism. But in the country’s April 2018 parliamentary election, the right-wing coalition government led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán won its third consecutive two-thirds legislative majority since 2010. That two-thirds majority is significant, because that is what it takes to amend the constitution in Hungary. Orbán, who in 2016 had been the first global leader to endorse Donald Trump’s candidacy for president of the United States, ran on a vigorously anti-immigration platform in 2018. In 2015, Orbán had built a wall along the border between Hungary and Serbia in the name of border security and to prevent asylum seekers from entering Hungary. Once reelected, he secured legislation in 2018 that criminalized any attempts by individuals or groups to help illegal immigrants claim asylum, as well as a controversial constitutional amendment that prohibited foreign nationals from outside Europe (any “alien population”) from settling in Hungary.

That 2018 amendment was the seventh to Hungary’s 2011 constitution (itself written by Orbán and his coalition), and Orbán promised more would come. Each had been secured by a two-thirds party-line vote of parliament. Earlier (equally controversial) amendments had weakened the power of Hungary’s Constitutional Court (the equivalent of our Supreme Court) by limiting judicial independence and the Court’s power to interpret laws; curtailed religious liberty by declaring that the government has a fundamental duty to protect Christian culture and granting Parliament the sole power to decide which religious organizations count as churches; and helped to solidify Orbán’s ruling coalition by banning political advertising in any venue except the state media (which happened to be controlled by Orbán’s Fidesz party)—an action the Constitutional Court had previously declared unconstitutional when passed by ordinary legislation.

Such amendments were condemned by the opposition party within Hungary, and led to protests in the streets of Budapest, but—unlike amendments to the U.S. Constitution—Hungary’s amendments did not require ratification beyond passage in parliament. Critics claimed the amendments were a threat to democracy and human rights, yet they were passed by super-majorities of Parliament whose ruling coalition had won resounding victories in three democratic elections.