Fidesz and KDNP members of parliament have turned to the Constitutional Court (CC) over the 17th constitutional amendment, which, among other things, terminated the mandate of President of the Republic Tamás Sulyok, introduced a 12-year (or three-term) time limit on parliamentary mandates, and set a maximum age of 70 for Constitutional Court justices.

The motion for ex post facto review of norms, which runs to more than 40 pages and was received on 22 July, is available on the CC’s website. Among its final requests, it asks the CC to establish that the National Assembly used the constitutional amendment procedure to adopt public law decisions tailored to a closed group of specific individuals, falling outside the substantive scope of the power to amend the constitution.

It further requests that the CC establish that several provisions of the 17th amendment do not meet procedural requirements and should therefore be annulled with retroactive effect.

The motion also calls on the CC, before issuing a substantive ruling, to refer the matter to the Court of Justice of the European Union and to initiate a preliminary ruling procedure on the question of the disqualification from national parliamentary election based on prior parliamentary mandates, and on the constitutional amendment shortening the mandates of sitting Constitutional Court justices by introducing a new age-based condition.

Artificial intelligence was used for the translation of parts of the original Hungarian text.