Legislating fear – excluding and threatening dissenters on a constitutional level

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➡️ HHC’s information note on the 15th Amendment to Hungary’s Fundamental Law
➡️ Joint civil society paper on banning Pride

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The past weeks were characterized by increasingly inflammatory rhetoric by key figures of the governing majority, first and foremost the Prime Minister, who targeted civil society actors, judges, journalists, and minority groups. Just like in the past, legislative action swiftly followed these words. In March 2025, members of the governing parties submitted three bills to Parliament, turning verbal threats into actual legislative measures:

• the 15th Amendment to the Fundamental Law,
• an omnibus bill amending certain acts of Parliament related to the 15th Amendment, and
• an omnibus bill with the aim to ban Budapest Pride and extend the use of facial recognition techniques.

These laws represent a significant escalation in the Government’s efforts to suppress dissent, weaken human rights protection, and consolidate its grip on power.

The HHC analysed the amendments, focusing on the following proposed key changes:

• the suspension of nationality;
• the attacks on LGBTQI rights;
• tweaking the rules of the state of danger once again to secure power.

➡️ Our paper:
Exclusion and threatening dissenters on a constitutional level – Information note on the 15th Amendment to Hungary’s Fundamental Law and accompanying laws (19 March 2025)

➡️ Our unofficial translation of the proposed 15th Amendment is here.

Together with Amnesty International Hungary, Háttér Association, and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, we also prepared an analysis focusing on the banning of the annual Budapest Pride and related changes. As the paper explains, the changes have overarching consequences that affect fundamental rights well beyond the issue of Pride. Considering the gravity and urgency of the consequences of the adopted changes, we urge the European Commission, besides launching a new infringement procedure to address the entirety of the changes, to request, as an interim measure, the suspension of the application of the anti-LGBTQI Propaganda Law, which serves as the primary basis of the banning of the Pride, in the ongoing, related lawsuit at the Court of Justice of the European Union.

➡️ Our joint analysis is available here:
Legislating Fear: Banning Pride is the latest assault on fundamental rights in Hungary (21 March 2025)