Constitutional judge closed her path back to Hungary’s courts. She led the office today’s president warned about and lost his post for it

Tünde Handó, who for eight years led the office administering Hungary’s courts, has resigned from her ordinary judicial post. The decision published in Monday’s Magyar Közlöny releases her as of October 14, while her mandate as a constitutional judge remains in place until 2032. Index ↗ The step comes at a time when Péter Magyar’s new majority is opening up the constitutional and judicial order after the Orbán era. Handó was one of the most visible faces of that order. Critics, however, accuse the new government of rebuilding it with the same tools Fidesz once used.

She gave up the smaller office to keep the larger one

The difference between the two offices is essential to understanding the move. Handó has been a judge since 1991 and has sat on the Constitutional Court since January 2020. Her ordinary judicial service was suspended after she took up that post, not abolished. Monday’s decision concerns precisely this suspended service. mfor.hu ↗

In practice, this means one thing: if she were to leave the Constitutional Court, she can no longer return to the courts. Until now, that option had remained open to her. HVG ↗

Her mandate on the Constitutional Court expires in 2032, several months before her seventieth birthday. The age limit of seventy, which the amendment pushed through by Tisza returned to the constitution for constitutional judges, therefore does not affect her. Telex ↗

Hungarian media also describe her in headlines about the departure as the wife of József Szájer, a founding member of Fidesz and co-author of the 2011 constitution. Handó did not give a reason for her step, and the decision does not state one either. The same document also released judge Anikó Csorba as of October 1; four other judges will leave in March 2027 after reaching retirement age.

The office Baka warned about

The Národný súdny úrad was created in 2012 as part of Orbán’s judicial reform. That reform abolished the Národná justičná rada and concentrated its administrative powers over the courts in the hands of a single person. Handó became the office’s first chair and led it until November 2019.

The president of the Supreme Court, András Baka, publicly opposed this structure at the time. He argued that the abolition of the council was not justified and that the new office could mean an excessive concentration of power in the hands of its head. Telex ↗

He lost his office for that criticism. He had been elected on June 22, 2009, for six years, meaning his mandate was supposed to last until June 22, 2015. The transitional provisions of the new constitution ended it as of January 1, 2012, three and a half years early. Because the change was directly in the constitution, the Constitutional Court could not review it.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled on June 23, 2016, that Hungary had violated Baka’s right to freedom of expression as well as his right of access to a court. The Grand Chamber stated that judges have not only the right, but also the duty to speak out in defense of judicial independence. International Commission of Jurists ↗

Baka took office as president of Hungary on August 19, 2026.

Read also: Hungary’s Constitutional Court is dealing with the end of President Sulyok’s mandate. Fidesz runs into a rule it wrote itself

Seven years of disputes over her office

In the early years, Handó had support within the judiciary. The turning point came in 2018, when her critics entered the Národná sudcovská rada, which is supposed to oversee the office.

On May 2, 2018, the council found violations of the law in her decision-making practice. It criticized her for declaring selection procedures for senior judicial posts unsuccessful without justification, then filling posts with temporary appointees and explaining the reasons neither to candidates nor to evaluation bodies. Index ↗

Over a year and a half, the council issued eight warnings, and from April 2018 Handó refused to cooperate with it. On May 8, 2019, it therefore turned to parliament with a request for her removal. 444 ↗

Parliament rejected the motion on June 11, 2019, by 120 votes against and 54 in favor; MPs from Fidesz and KDNP did not support it. 444 ↗

Five months later, on November 4, 2019, the same majority elected her as a constitutional judge. A total of 134 MPs voted in favor and 27 against. Her twelve-year mandate began on January 1, 2020. 444 ↗

The limits of this view

The story can be told as a closing of the circle, but that would be only half the picture. Handó attached extensive and sharply worded dissenting opinions to the resolutions by which the Constitutional Court rejected Fidesz submissions against the constitutional amendments of the Tisza government without examining them on the merits. On her part, then, this is not a quiet retreat.

The more fundamental objection is directed at the new majority. Legal scholar Péter Hack points out that President Tamás Sulyok was removed using the same tool as Baka once was, namely a constitutional amendment and an organizational step instead of proper proceedings. According to him, there are only two consistent positions: either both removals are unlawful, or both are in order. “One injustice cannot be answered with another injustice, even when political actors invoke the wrongs of the past fifteen years,” he says. Index ↗

This dispute is precisely the core of the dispute over Hungary’s judiciary after the change of government. Baka’s entry into Sándor Palace was made possible by a constitutional change that his critics describe in the same language Strasbourg used against Hungary in his own case.

Illustrative photo: the building of Hungary’s Constitutional Court in Budapest. Author Globetrotter19, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

What hotinfo is watching