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ABSTRACT
Although both Hungary and the Czech Republic have seen populists arrive in power over the past decade, only Hungary has experienced a measurable deterioration in the quality of its democratic institutions and rule of law. The different circumstances of the transition after 1989, particularly the differences in constitutional choices and transitional justice measures, help explain the cleavages, polarization, and erosion of trust that characterized Hungarian politics in the run up to the 2010 election. Jointly with a highly disproportionate electoral system, these structural factors made Hungary more prone to the de-democratization observed under Viktor Orbán than the Czech Republic.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 I am grateful to Veronica Anghel, Štefan Auer, Pelin Ayan, Paulus Albertus Bokker, Aviezer Tucker, Erik Jones, Stefan Kolev, David Kosař, Martin Krygier, Jiří Přibáň, Cameron Ross, and an anonymous referee for helpful suggestions and comments on earlier versions of this paper. Lance Kokonos provided excellent research assistance. All errors are my own.
2 See van Kessel (Citation2015, p. 41).
3 ‘The Czech Republic is a corporation with ten million shareholders,’ Babiš stated in 2012. (Němec, Citation2012)
4 ‘My newspapers are completely independent. Of course, maybe — probably — there is some self-censorship, but that is not my fault,’ Babiš said in 2016. (Foy, Citation2016)
5 Act LXXVI of 2017.
6 Act XII of 2020
7 ‘Elections to the Chamber of Deputies are done through a secret ballot based on universal, equal, and direct suffrage, following the principles of proportional representation.’ (Article 18/1, Constitution of the Czech Republic)
8 The Constitution of the Czech Republic.
9 Article 50, The Constitution of the Czech Republic.
10 Article 32/A (4), The Constitution of the Republic of Hungary.
11 In the 2000s, the country saw stand-offs between then-President Václav Klaus and the Senate majority over his Constitutional Court appointments, resulting in periods during which the Court did not have the prescribed number of judges.
12 Article 47 (3), The Constitution of the Czech Republic.
13 Articles 40 and 49, The Constitution of the Czech Republic.
14 The Bill of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms.
15 See also Slosarcik (Citation2001, p. 530).
16 See also Paczolay’s (Citation1993) case for a new Hungarian constitution.
17 Czech Constitutional Court (Citation2001a, Citation2001b, Citation2001c). See also Czech Constitutional Court (Citation2006) for a decision using the framers’ intent as an argument against the putative power of the President to dismiss Supreme Court judges before the end of their term, or Czech Constitutional Court (Citation1998) for a civil law decision stressing the ‘duty of state and public bodies to interpret and apply law considering the protection of basic rights and freedoms.’ Czech constitutional order also ensures that ‘Czech judges come into daily contact with a resolutely anti-formalist constitutional tribunal’ (Matczak et al., Citation2010, p. 93) because of the mechanism of constitutional complaint through which lower court decisions can be challenged on constitutionality grounds. In contrast, no provisions enabled or encouraged Hungarian lower-level courts to apply the constitution directly to cases. (Bencze, Citation2007)
18 Pew Global Attitudes Project (Citation2009).
19 Gallagher Index, scaled between 0 and 100, captures the relative disproportionality between votes received and seats allotted in a legislature. For data, see Gallagher (Citation2021).
20 Gallagher (Citation2021).
21 Gallagher (Citation2021).
22 Herron (Citation2002) discusses effects of similar mechanisms at play in Russia and in Ukraine.