From the Rule of Law to the Law of Rule: Dismantling the Rule of Law in Hungary, 2010-2024

Hungary has been an autocracy since 2010. Although, on paper, the system in Hungary preserves a Weberian base of legal and rational legitimacy, in actuality the primacy of law has been replaced by the primacy of political interests over the rule of law. Government by decree has replaced government by law. Hungary has developed its own peculiar form of autocracy in which the governing machinery functions as a mafia state—a sort of centrally directed criminal organization.

In the collection of writings presented here, the editors and contributors have endeavored to give an account of this process and its devastating effects on the legal and institutional structures of the Hungarian state. At the same time, we have striven for clarity of understanding, economy of words and, ultimately, to offer the reader a broad overview of the dismantling of the constitutional structures of liberal democracy in Hungary.