Hungary’s parliament voted Monday to lift the parliamentary immunity of three lawmakers, including new Prime Minister Peter Magyar, allowing criminal investigations against them to proceed.
Magyar, who is leading a political, media and judicial overhaul aimed at reversing measures introduced during former prime minister Viktor Orban’s 15 years of illiberal rule, is suspected of theft over a June 2024 incident in which he allegedly grabbed a man’s phone during an altercation at a nightclub and threw it into the Danube River.
The Danube in Budapest
(Photo: FERENC ISZA / AFP)
The incident at the center of prosecutors’ request to investigate Magyar occurred on the night of June 20-21, 2024, nearly two years before he won the general election and came to power. Magyar, who was already leading the opposition Tisza party and emerging as Orban’s main rival, went dancing with friends at an upscale Budapest nightclub.
There, he grabbed the phone of a man who, according to Magyar, had been continuously filming him, his friends and other young people and refused to stop despite repeated requests. Magyar later went outside and threw the phone into the river.
Magyar said at the time that the man filming him was not simply a bystander but a “paid provocateur from Fidesz,” Orban’s party, and claimed he had followed Magyar and his friends on previous nights as well.
The future prime minister said the man deliberately filmed them and other young people at close range and shouted insults at them in an attempt to provoke them and cause a disturbance.
Magyar’s opponents, meanwhile, circulated allegations that he had become drunk at the club, behaved wildly, harassed women and was “escorted out by security guards,” claims Magyar rejected as complete lies.
Divers later recovered the phone from the bottom of the river for the investigation.
Magyar rejected the claim that his actions amounted to theft and accused investigators of pursuing a case opened during Orban’s rule, involving damage that he said barely exceeds $300, as politically motivated “theater.”
In recent days, the new prime minister also criticized prosecutors for seeking to lift his immunity at the same time as those of two former ministers from the Orban era, who, unlike Magyar, are suspected of offenses involving the alleged misuse of tens of millions of dollars in public funds and the receipt of millions more in bribes.
Despite his criticism, Magyar asked members of his party ahead of Monday’s vote to support lifting his immunity.
“I did not commit a crime, and I take responsibility for all my actions. Someone who has nothing to hide stands openly before the law,” he told lawmakers.
He stressed that everyone is equal before the law, from a factory worker to the prime minister.
Viktor Orban. His party’s lawmakers declined to take part in the vote
(Photo: Petr David Josek/AP)
Parliamentary immunity, as in Israel and other European democracies, is intended to protect lawmakers from politically motivated prosecution and allow them to perform their duties and express their views without fear of arrest or legal action.
Hungary’s previous government under Orban had sought to strip Magyar of his immunity when he was a member of the European Parliament, but the European Parliament repeatedly refused to do so.
In Monday’s vote, lawmakers also approved lifting the immunity of two former ministers in Orban’s government who are suspected in separate cases. A total of 139 of parliament’s 199 members voted in favor of lifting the immunities, with no votes against or abstentions.
One case involves former culture minister Balazs Hanko, who is suspected of misusing $53.6 million from Hungary’s National Cultural Fund. Prosecutors allege that Hankó personally intervened in the allocation of money from the fund, which is intended to support cultural projects, based on political considerations and used the funds to cover costs related to Fidesz’s campaign ahead of elections held in April.
The second case involves Orban’s former development minister Miklos Sesztak. He is suspected of receiving $37.2 million in bribes and improper commissions. The case is linked to vehicle procurement at Hungary’s state-owned bus company and government construction projects.
Prime Minister Magyar. Says corruption cost Hungary as much as 10% of GDP
(Photo: Janos Kummer/Getty Images)
The two investigations come as Magyar’s government conducts a broad effort to uncover what it describes as years of massive fraud and theft of public funds under Orban.
Magyar claims corruption and misuse of public money cost Hungary between 8% and 10% of its gross domestic product in recent years under Orban’s rule.
Lawmakers from Orban’s Fidesz party and its former coalition partner, the Christian Democratic People’s Party, boycotted Monday’s vote, arguing that the allegations against their representatives amounted to “political tyranny” by Magyar’s government. iLoveSzeged.com