Hungary, according to the opinions of competent international organizations and renowned scholars, has been sliding from democracy toward a special kind of autocracy in the last twelve years (Tóth 2019, Halmai 2021, Pap 2018, Guriev

& Treisman 2019), thus it is worth-while to conduct a social-scientific analysis of the process of this political transition in government-courts relationship. This paper focuses on a governmental strategy of the Hungarian government executed in order to influence the adjudicative practice of courts which is more subtle, but as effective as court packing, open threat of judges or ‘telephone justice’.

We first answer some methodological questions of the research then outline the populist political environment after 2010 in Hungary and the ‘Hungarian model’ of judicial independence developed since the late nineteenth century. In the following part we present the pressure exercised by the government on courts in the name of the ‘ordinary citizen’ (Bencze 2022) and by using the methods of statistical and content analysis we determine the strength of the criticism and expressed expectations from the government toward court decisions as well as the firmness of responses of court leaders and representatives of peer organizations to them.

Then, based on our findings, we, also by using statistical method, examine the changes in the judicial practice in two fields of adjudication that can be indicators of judicial independence and resistance to governmental influence: temporal changes in the number of ‘concrete’ constitutional review and in the number of preliminary ruling procedures (initiators of both procedures are judges).

Our conclusion is that one cannot find a specific governmental measure which could break down the judicial independence, instead of that the steady and relentless pressure on courts, though far from open repression or intimidation, can have that impact on judicial practice the government aimed at.

References:

Bencze, Mátyás. "‘Everyday Judicial Populism’ in Hungary". Review of Central and East European Law 47.1 (2022): 37-59.

Guriev, Sergei & Treisman Daniel: “Informational Autocrats” Journal of Economic Perspectives 2019/4. 100-127.

Halmai, Gábor “Illiberal Constitutionalism in East-Central Europe” in Engelbrekt Bakardjieva – Antonina; Andreas Moberg – Joakim Nergelius (eds.): Rule Of Law In The Eu: 30 Years After The Fall Of The Berlin Wall (Oxford 2021) 51-74.

Kovács, Ágnes, Bencze, Mátyás & Ződi Zsolt "Methods of Quality Assessment of Judicial Reasoning in Hungary" In: Bencze, Mátyás & Yein Ng, Gar (eds.) How to Measure the Quality of Judicial Reasoning (Cham, Springer 2018) 187-205.

Pap, András L: Democratic Decline in Hungary: Law and Society in an Illiberal Democracy (Routledge 2018) 2–3.

Tóth, Gábor Attila: “Constitutional Markers of Authoritarianism” Hague J Rule Law 2019/1. 37-61.

This paper analyses the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the management of Italian Civil Courts.

The “MVGiust” project aimed to 1) map the different solutions adopted by Italian Courts to manage judicial activities during the Covid-19 pandemic and 2) identify common organizational best practices, given the diversity of soft rules implemented by each judicial office (e.g., guidelines and protocols), in accordance with local bar associations. Under specific guidelines issued by the Higher Council of the Judiciary each Court has in fact regulated the way judicial activities were managed, leading to the development of diversified rules and practices.

From a methodological point of view, then, it became first of all necessary to collect all soft law measures adopted during the pandemic and enter them in a database. Furthermore, it became necessary to conduct a field study to verify the presence of additional practices, via interviews with judges and lawyers from judicial offices throughout the country.

This paper provides an initial analysis of the information gathered; particular attention is paid to two important issues: on the one hand, the creation of a complex system of multi-level governance of justice, where soft law takes on an increasingly important role; on the other hand, the gradual normalisation of “remote justice”, where physical presence and dialogue seem to be increasingly left aside. Ultimately, these critical issues raise questions about the future shape of civil proceedings.

This research project has been funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (Project MVGiust).