At the end of each quarter and at the end of the year, the Constitutional Court publishes detailed tables of its case-load. Below we summarise the key data for the second quarter of 2022 and provide an overview of the data on case-load and the decisions.

Between 1 April and 3 June 2022, the number of new cases referred to rapporteur justices of the Constitutional Court was 157 with 150 of them being constitutional complaints. Key data on newly opened cases by fields of competence assigned to rapporteur justices of the Constitutional Court (together with the second quarter data of the previous year) are as follows:

In recent years, the Constitutional Court has received a large number of petitions concerning the entitlement to an immunity card, the conditions for issuing an antibody card based on natural immunity, and the mandatory vaccination of public employees, health workers and the staff of the prosecutor’s office. Given the identity of their texts and the large number of motions by each of these subjects, these motions are not included in the statistics. In these cases, the Constitutional Court acted on the basis of section 30 (5) of the Rules of Procedure. This means that, among the various types of petitions, only the first petitioners who submitted a complaint were informed that the petition had been registered by the Constitutional Court and that the case had been referred to the rapporteur Justice of the Constitutional Court. Since in these cases the Constitutional Court examines the constitutionality of statutory provisions on the basis of section 26 (2) of the Act on the Constitutional Court, the decisions in each case apply to all concerned. The website provides detailed and up-to-date information on these matters (in Hungarian) >>

Another special category of cases is those brought on the basis of petitions against legislation or judicial decisions relating to the epidemics emergency introduced in the recent years. An up-to-date list of these cases is available here (in Hungarian) >>

Several constitutional complaints have been lodged by the parties concerned in the appeal procedures related to the parliamentary elections of April 2022. In these cases, the Constitutional Court has to decide on admission within 3 working days pursuant to section 233 of Act XXXVI of 2013 on Electoral Procedure (Electoral Procedure Act), and has a further 3 working days to decide on the merits. Similar provisions apply to constitutional complaints about a national referendum. The graph below shows data on constitutional complaints related to the 2022 elections, together with data from previous parliamentary and municipal election years and national referendums.

In terms of completions, the bodies (plenary and panels) closed 172 cases between 1 April and 30 June 2022, of which 41 cases were decided on the merits. In 9 cases, judicial or administrative decisions were annulled, while 5 decision annulled a provision of the law.

The table below shows the main data for the second quarter for completed cases, together with the data for the second quarter of the previous year:

The evolution of the quarterly data on completed cases is shown in the graph below:

Pursuant to section 43 of the Act on the Constitutional Court, if the Constitutional Court finds that a judicial decision is contrary to the Fundamental Law, it shall annul the decision. The graph below shows the evolution of the number of Constitutional Court decisions annulling judicial decisions, also on a quarterly basis, for the past two years.

Pursuant to section 41 (1) of the Act on the Constitutional Court, if the Constitutional Court finds that a law or a provision of the law is contrary to the Fundamental Law, it shall annul it in whole or in part. The current list of 2022 Constitutional Court decisions annulling judicial decisions and legislative provisions is available here (in Hungarian) >>

If the Constitutional Court, in its proceedings conducted in the exercise of its competences, establishes an omission on the part of the law-maker that results in violating the Fundamental Law, it shall call upon the organ that committed the omission to perform its task and set a time-limit for that. Current outstanding legislative omissions can be accessed on the website here (in Hungarian) >>

The Constitutional Court, in the exercise of its powers, may in its decision lay down the constitutional requirements with which the application of the legislation under review must comply. A table summarising the constitutional requirements established by the Constitutional Court is available here (in Hungarian) >>

The graph below shows the number of decisions annulling a law (provision of the law), together with the number of decisions establishing an unconstitutional omission or a constitutional requirement.

The average administration time of the constitutional complaint cases completed by the bodies in the first half of 2022 was 278 days from the day of filing the petition, which is significantly less than the 307-day average in 2021. It is important to note, however, that the time limits laid down in the Rules of Procedure are not counted from the date of the submission of the petition, but from the date of assigning it on the rapporteur. The graph below shows annual data on the average time taken to complete a case with data dating back to 2013.

Finally, with regard to the completed cases, an overview of the proportion of constitutional complaint cases closed with a decision on the merits in the second three months of 2022, according to the fields of law concerned:

The development of case-load at the end of the second quarter is as follows. On 30 June 2022, there were 338 cases assigned to rapporteur Justices, a slight decrease compared to the data (353) at the end of the previous quarter (31 March 2022).

The number and the detailed breakdown of cases pending before rapporteur Justices on 30 June 2022 was as follows. The table also includes data for the end of the previous quarter for comparison. Evidently, the figures do not include the cases in which the preparatory procedure with the Secretary-General was still ongoing.

The graph below shows the development of new cases assigned to the rapporteur Justices of the Constitutional Court, with the data on completions and the actual caseload (number of pending cases) for the past two years, broken down by quarter.

Tables with detailed accumulated case-load and statistics data as at 30 June 2022 are available here >>

There are also separate tables on the administration of constitutional complaints. Starting from 2013, they contain detailed data on constitutional complaints (number of rejected and admitted complaints, number of decisions on the merits, pending cases, etc.), broken down by year. These tables can be accessed here >>