Not a single judge resigned when the two-third majority in parliament mutilated (into two third) the rights of this fundamental institution of democracy (Constitutional Court) last autumn. After that, many questioned the Constitutional Court’s moral and ethical legitimacy. At that time we could say that the „backbreaking” pain was overridden by the judges’ responsibility felt for the country. However, as months and weeks pass by without any action – even if this institution wants it or not – it sort of becomes the prime minister’s bench player. Its weight and authority slowly melts away.
Mr. Viktor Orbán managed to achieve what it wanted: now there is not single forum – other than the ones created and controlled by him – where a citizen could protest against the overexpansion of state power and authority. The prime minister – surrounded by a flock of mamlouks – is not vulnerable at all. Hence the biggest problem is that his decisions are not vulnerable either. Those who would try to challenge them are pushed to the streets and are controlled by a dishonored police force.
It is not a problem that there is no more niggling: his country is facing its biggest task yet to come. The elimination of the ruins of civil democracy requires almost efforts that befit a deity, and humbleness from everybody. It is simply a matter of luck that the creator of this war finds himself as anointed leader on the front. A pure polyhistor who – just this week alone – managed to claim as his own, with a humble smile on his face, the entire structural reorganization of the Hungarian economy, and yet he also managed to remember who should be the director of the Hungarian State Opera, or the head coach of the Fehervár soccer team.
Ironically, he entrusts his ‘state secretary responsible for clown affairs’ to manage personal consultations, while he himself is in social correspondence with the population. „I started with the politicians, I halved their number and introduced salary ceilings” – says Mr. Orbán, with his sleeves up. He did this all himself. He doesn’t speak, he declares instead. He shows where to go. He was born to define – even as a beacon to Europe – how ten millions of Hungarians shall live in decades to come.
This is what it is: where tyranny is allowed to be born, there it will be born.
Róbert Friss, Népszabadság, June 4. 2011.

Last Updated on Thursday, 16 June 2011 19:37