Justice Minister Judit Varga published today's sad news on her social media page. Here it is:
Although we had no illusions, the European Court of Justice rejected the Hungarian lawsuit filed against the European Parliament, which contested the legality of the adoption of the "Sargentini Report".
In our opinion, the vote was against not only the EU treaties, but also the EP's own rules of procedure. During the vote counting, the abstention votes (namely the votes of 48 EP representatives) were not counted among the votes cast.
If the abstentions had been taken into account when determining the proportion of supporting votes - based on clear procedural rules that are easily identifiable even for a first-year law student - then the necessary two-thirds majority for the adoption of the politically biased report would not have been achieved. As we know, abstention means tacit agreement. The EU representatives' conscious declaration of political will and not the fact that they do not wish to participate in a vote. Then they won't even go to vote. The irregular way of counting the votes also violated the principle of the free mandate of the representatives, since they "contributed" to the success of a decision against their will.
However, the interests of the Sargentinis dictated that the EP ignore these votes. We can remember that earlier in an interview, the reporter himself asked the potential abstainers to go out for a coffee during the voting.
And are we still being held accountable for adhering to common values and rules? Come on! It is also interesting that almost three years had to be waited for a court ruling on such a simple procedural law issue, while in another case, the extremely complicated issue of the rule of law conditionality regulation, the EP itself demands the speeding up of the Court's decision-making process. Controversial to say the least.
At the same time, it should be emphasized that today's decision of the Court in no way means confirmation of the contents of the Sargentini report. The accusations in the report have been refuted by the Hungarian Government on a number of occasions both on a professional and principled level.
As before, Hungary, in the spirit of loyal cooperation, is ready for dialogue on issues related to the rule of law. However, we continue to reject politically motivated witch hunts.
