Hungarian parliament lifts immunity of PM and Orbán-era ministers in separate criminal cases
Hungarian lawmakers clear way for investigations into prime minister and former Orbán ministers
Poinews.com – Hungary’s parliament has voted to remove the parliamentary immunity of Prime Minister Péter Magyar and two former ministers who served under Viktor Orbán, allowing separate criminal investigations to proceed. The decision on Monday places the country’s new prime minister and senior figures from the previous administration under intensified legal scrutiny.
Magyar, who leads the conservative, pro-European Tisza party, had asked legislators to lift his own immunity. He has said he wants the opportunity to answer allegations directly and reject what he describes as an effort to damage his reputation politically.
“Character assassination.”
The chamber approved requests involving Magyar, former culture minister Balázs Hankó and former development minister Miklós Seszták by overwhelming margins. Prosecutors had sought the removal of their protections last week. Orbán’s Fidesz party and its coalition partner, KDNP, did not take part in the parliamentary sitting.
Separate allegations, one parliamentary vote
The three cases concern different alleged offences and should not be viewed as a single investigation. Magyar faces an allegation of theft linked to an incident in 2024, while Hankó and Seszták are suspected in separate corruption matters involving large sums of public money and alleged bribery.
Prosecutors allege that Magyar took a mobile phone from a man who was filming him in a nightclub in 2024, then threw the device into the Danube. Magyar disputes the accusation and has labelled the case a “sham.”
He has also argued that prosecutors were attempting to connect the cases involving former Orbán-era ministers with what he called an attempted political attack on his character.
“To conflate” the former ministers’ cases “with the attempt at political character assassination...which has already failed several times.”
The lifting of immunity does not establish guilt. It removes a procedural barrier that had prevented investigators from pursuing the cases in the ordinary criminal-justice process. Any eventual findings on responsibility would depend on the investigations and subsequent legal proceedings.
First major graft probes involving Orbán-era senior officials
The inquiries into Hankó and Seszták carry wider political significance because they are the first corruption investigations to target top figures from Orbán’s 16 years in office. Both men deny any wrongdoing.
Hankó, a Fidesz lawmaker and former culture minister, is accused of embezzling more than €40 million in public funds. Prosecutors allege that the money was used partly to support the 2026 parliamentary election campaign and partly for the personal benefit of other individuals.
Investigators seized Fidesz servers in July as part of the Hankó case. Orbán responded at the time by accusing the authorities of conducting a sham inquiry intended to make his party “legally unviable.” The dispute has added to the political tension surrounding the investigation, with the former governing party challenging the motives behind the enforcement action.
Seszták, who represents Fidesz ally KDNP, is being investigated over allegations that he accepted bribes worth millions of dollars while serving as minister of national development from 2014 to 2018. The case centres on purchases of used buses that were allegedly made at inflated prices.
The allegations against the two former ministers concern conduct during the long Orbán administration, a period now under sharper examination following the change in government. The parliamentary vote means investigators can pursue their work without the additional constitutional protection previously attached to the lawmakers’ offices.
Magyar’s anti-corruption mandate
Magyar’s Tisza party won power in April after campaigning on promises to investigate suspected corruption and abuses of office during Orbán’s years as prime minister. The cases involving Hankó and Seszták therefore test a central element of the new government’s political mandate: whether past allegations involving prominent members of the former ruling establishment will be investigated through normal legal channels.
At the same time, the decision to remove Magyar’s immunity exposes the prime minister himself to a criminal inquiry. His request for the waiver reflects an attempt to separate his political position from the judicial process and to demonstrate that legal scrutiny should apply to government leaders as well as opposition figures and former officeholders.
Magyar has gone further by calling for parliamentary immunity to be abolished for criminal offences prosecuted publicly. Such immunity is generally intended to protect lawmakers from politically motivated interference in their work, but critics can argue that it also creates a barrier when elected officials are suspected of ordinary criminal conduct. Magyar’s proposal places that balance at the centre of Hungary’s political debate.
Monday’s vote gives prosecutors authority to move forward in each matter, but it does not resolve the allegations. For Hungary, the proceedings will be closely watched both as a test of accountability after a major transfer of power and as an early measure of how the new administration handles an investigation involving its own prime minister.
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