Hungary rights groups criticize Magyar plan to oust president Sulyok

Hungary's new governing party has moved to strip President Tamás Sulyok from office through a constitutional amendment, and rights groups say the shortcut would weaken the safeguards meant to restrain executive power. Peter Magyar also wants a 12-year term limit for lawmakers and a broader constitutional overhaul in the autumn, widening a fight over how far a new majority can remake the state after 16 years of Fidesz-led rule.

The clash is about more than one presidency. Hungary's head of state has limited powers, mainly the ability to veto laws or refer them for constitutional review, but the office still carries symbolic and constitutional weight. Sulyok, a former Constitutional Court judge who served as court president from 2016 to 2024, was appointed president in 2024 by a parliament then dominated by Viktor Orban's Fidesz party. Reporting places the end of his five-year term either in March 2029 or in 2030, depending on how the date is counted.

Amnesty International Hungary said Sulyok should leave office only through proper procedure. Aron Demeter, the group's communications director, said impeachment would be fairer and more in line with international standards, and he told ATV that the government's chosen solution "is not alright." Amnesty also argued that ending Sulyok's term immediately through a constitutional amendment would strip away due-process safeguards that normally come with a removal procedure.

The draft amendment itself says its aim is to create "the preconditions for the restoration of constitutional democracy," language that shows how both sides are framing the battle in institutional terms. A political analyst, Gabor Torok, criticized the idea of removing the head of state through what he called a one-sentence constitutional amendment. That criticism cuts to the core of the dispute in Budapest: whether Magyar's two-thirds majority will rebuild checks and balances after Fidesz rule, or simply use the constitution to swap one set of politicized institutions for another.

Magyar has tied the presidency fight to a wider agenda, including anti-corruption measures and the creation of a National Asset Protection and Recovery Office. For the European Union, which has spent years warning about rule-of-law erosion in Hungary, the test is whether the new leadership is restoring constitutional norms or normalizing a faster, less constrained way of rewriting them.