Europe needs a strong European People’s Party (EPP), while the EPP needs a strong Fidesz, Justice Minister László Trócsányi, who is the leader of Fidesz’s list of candidates for the European parliamentary (EP) elections, pointed out in an interview given to the conservative German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) which was published on the newspaper’s news portal on Sunday.

In the context of the dispute surrounding Fidesz’s EPP membership, the politician highlighted that the EPP is “a big family” in which many different political lines are present, and these “sometimes clash”. He said it is to be hoped that Fidesz will remain within the EPP, and that on 20 March when the EPP’s political assembly discusses Fidesz’s membership the parties will succeed in reaching a “wise” result which will favour Fidesz.

“At present there is no plan B at all,” he said in answer to the question as to whether there is a plan B for the event that Fidesz is expelled from the centre-right formation EPP. He observed that “it is always sad” when there is a divorce in a family because every divorce is painful and usually everyone stands to lose by it.

Regarding the government campaign giving rise to the dispute which features President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, himself a member of the EPP, he said “we did not attack Mr Juncker’s person, but the poor decisions of the Commission’s opinion-makers”.

He highlighted that in the past few years the Brussels body has acted as “a political commission” despite the fact that the European Treaties clearly lay down that the European Council comprised of the heads of state and government of the Member States must designate the political line, while the duty of the Commission is to uphold the spirit of the Treaties and to follow the line designated by the Council. “Instead what we see is that the Council’s influence is diminishing, and the Commission wants to set the political agenda,” Mr Trócsányi said.

The Minister answered in the negative to the question as to whether the independence of courts is in danger in Hungary, and stressed that he has always respected the independence of the judiciary “because this is the most important value in a constitutional state”.

Regarding the establishment of administrative courts, he pointed out that the powers of the justice minister of the day are rather limited, and they have built mechanisms into the system which “make it impossible for the minister to proceed in an arbitrary manner”. He said they had thoroughly studied the models of other countries, including the relevant German and Austrian solutions, and had adopted mostly the Austrian model, but had built further guarantees into the system. “My conscience is therefore perfectly clear,” Mr Trócsányi said.

He highlighted in connection with the criticisms levelled at the new system that we must separate political and legal arguments. The criticisms of politicians always contain an element of “political presumption”. However, talking to foreign lawyers the tone is completely different, “and we can engage in a dialogue,” he said, adding that they had consulted with the Venice Commission, the advisory body of the Council of Europe comprised of constitutional lawyers. They will thoroughly consider their recommendations and will seek to adopt as many of them as is practicable.

He underlined that the law on administrative courts offers appeal options against all administrative decisions resulting in legal consequences, “meaning that we have extended the framework, rather than narrowing it down”.

Regarding the earlier reforms implemented in the judiciary, he said that the introduction of the new constitution in 2011 had indeed resulted in the passage of many new laws, “but Hungary was always open to dialogue” and accepted the European Court’s decision on the issue of the retirement of judges. He observed that there were also other countries where the retirement age of judges was lowered, but these instances only provoked internal political disputes at most.

In response to the suggestion that the changes had also affected the Constitutional Court, he highlighted that the Hungarian Constitutional Court is an internationally reputed body, and the changes were implemented on the basis of the experiences of the past twenty years and contributed to enhanced stability.

Mr Trócsányi underlined in answer to a question concerning the finding of GRECO, the Council of Europe’s anti-corruption monitoring body that the conflict between the National Office for the Judiciary and the National Judicial Council hinders the fight against corruption, that in Hungary the rule of law is respected one hundred per cent, and so the government has no competence in this field and he as minister has no say in the matter.

He said as minister he is competent regarding the issue of the system of administrative courts, and it was at his initiative that a dialogue started between the government and the Venice Commission. He added that he is convinced that in the wake of the body’s position the dispute surrounding the new system will abate. He observed that, in actual fact, none of the people who make statements about the issue have read the relevant laws, and so they are not familiar with the guarantees under the rule of law that are laid down in them.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)