The Hungarian illiberal democracy

Translated by Irene Cecchi

Since February 11th 2023, Ilaria Salis, a 39 years old Italian citizen, is kept in preventive detention in the high security prison of Budapest, charged with grievous bodily harm, with her face covered, against far right demonstrators during the Day of Honor –an international event to honour the Dutch and Hungarian soldiers who died during the Budapest combat of October-February 1945 that gathers hundreds of militants from neo-nazi organisations from all over the world every year–.

In the last few months Amnesty International called attention (both Italian and European) to the degrading conditions of her imprisonment that both her parents and her lawyers denounced and that were evident also during court hearings where she displayed handcuffs, her feet tied with fetters and chains while being dragged by policemen.

The inhuman and degrading treatments are not over: there is also the lack of traduction of the court documents and the denied access to videos to be used as incriminating evidence. This conduct is a clear violation of the right to a fair trial, a right endorsed by numerous national and international sources, a right that represents a fundamental value of every democracy that honour this term.

The European Court of human rights repeatedly condemned Hungary for this kind of behaviour towards its inmates, but nothing seems to be changing.

During the first hearing on January 29th, Ilaria pleaded not guilty and declared having taken part in pacific opposition-demonstrations during the Day of Honour without attacking anybody.

On March 28th, during the last hearing, the Budapest court rejected the application for house arrest that Ilaria and her lawyer presented. The Hungarian judge Jozsef Sós explained that it was based on the risk of her escaping, so she has to stay in prison until the end of the process.

Ilaria’s father, Roberto Salis, stated: “the chains don’t depend on the judge but rather on the prison system and the executive one. The Italian government can and must do something so that my daughter is not treated like a dog”.

As a response, Antonio Tajani, the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs said: “I do not agree with the decision of the judge who didn’t allow the house arrest but politicising it it’s pointless. If we want her back in Italy we should rely on diplomacy, acting seriously and carefully. Politicising it will only lead to a clash with the Hungarian justice that is free to take its own decisions”.

The Hungarian government didn’t wait long before releasing a declaration through the Minister of Foreign Affairs press office stating: “Hungary is a State of law and the government doesn’t interfere with the judiciary at all”. In reality, facts don't support this statement, they contradict it.

Since the beginning of the last decade, Hungary showed the characteristics of an illiberal democracy, as the Prime Minister Orbán confirmed during a speech in 2014: “We have to admit that a democracy doesn’t necessarily have to be liberal, even if a Country isn’t liberal it can still be a democracy”.

The concept of illiberal democracy delineates a particular government system that hides its illiberal behaviours behind institutions and procedures that are apparently democratic; it is not a complete absence of democracy but it is only a matter of formalities. The concept of democracy becomes a simple procedural rule, getting rid of its liberal values such as the state of law, the principle of legality, the principle of judicial independence, the principle of separation of powers.

This happened and it’s still going on thanks to the emptying of all those powers, as the judicial one for example, that usually counterbalance the political power and that are now risking their independence and becoming more and more tied to the executive power.

The respect of human dignity, of freedom, of democracy, of equality, of the state of law, of human rights are the fundamental values of the European Union, as stated in the art.2 of the TUE. Hungary is clearly violating them and not only on occasion of the Ilaria Salis case. How is it possible to keep justifying its permanence in the Union?

The Ilaria Salis case in the Hungarian illiberal democracy framework highlights that even the rights that seem consolidated in our western democracies are always in danger. It is crucial for every citizen to be aware of it and for the international community to keep protecting them because, as José Saramago wrote in his novel Blindness: 

“I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see”.

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