27 October 2022
Between 1 July and 30 September 2022, the number of new cases referred to rapporteur justices of the Constitutional Court was 141 with 134 of them being constitutional complaints. Data on the distribution of new cases, according to fields of competence, assigned to the rapporteur Justices of the Constitutional Court are given in the table below. As there is a seasonal variation in the number of newly opened cases, the table includes data for the 3rd quarter of the previous year (2021) rather than the previous quarter for comparison:
| 3/2022 | 3/2021 | |||
| Total number of new cases referred to rapporteur justices | 141 | 133 | ||
| Number of constitutional complaints | 134 | 127 | ||
| Number of judicial initiatives | 4 | 4 | ||
| Number of posterior norm controls | 3 | 2 | ||
The relative proportions of different types of new cases in the third quarter of 2022 were as follows:
In terms of completions, the bodies (plenary and panels) closed 65 cases between 1 July and 30 September 2022, of which 7 cases were decided on the merits. In 2 cases, judicial or administrative decisions were annulled by the bodies. No provision of the law was annulled during this period.
The table below shows the main data for the 3rd quarter for completed cases. For the sake of comparability, this table also includes data for the 3rd quarter of the previous year to take seasonality into account.
| 3/2022 | 3/2021 | ||
| Total number of cases completed by the bodies | 65 | 110 | |
| Total number of cases concluded with a decision on the merits | 7 | 10 | |
| Annulment of a court / administrative decision | 2 | 2 | |
| Full/partial annulment of a law, provision of the law | 0 | 0 | |
| Rejecting the admission of a constitutional complaint | 52 | 80 | |
| Number of cases completed in the preparatory procedure before the Secretary-General and by ruling of a single judge | 233 | 207 |
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 on the basis of a constitutional complaint 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.
Number of decisions annulling a judicial decision (quarterly breakdown, 2020-2022)
The current list of 2022 Constitutional Court decisions annulling judicial decisions and legislative provisions is available here (in Hungarian) >>
Tables with detailed data on the handling of constitutional complaints are available here >> (pdf)
The average administration time of the constitutional complaint cases completed by the bodies last year was 307 days from the date of filing the petition, for the cases completed by 30 September, the average is 279 days. 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.
Average time taken to complete a constitutional complaint, in days from the date of receipt of the first document
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.
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.
Number of decisions annulling legislation or declaring an omission or constitutional requirement in the last 2 years (quarterly breakdown)
Finally, for completed cases, a graph showing the distribution of substantive decisions between the plenary session and the panels.
The development of case-load at the end of the third quarter is as follows. On 30 September 2022, there were 414 cases assigned to rapporteur Justices, it is a significant increase (+20%) compared to the data (338) at the end of the previous quarter (30 June 2022).
The number and the detailed breakdown of cases pending before rapporteur Justices on 30 September 2022 was as follows. The table also includes data for the end of the previous quarter for comparison. The figures refer to cases assigned to the rapporteur Justices of the Constitutional Court, i.e. the table does not include cases for which the preparatory procedure with the Secretary-General is still pending.
| 3/2022 | 2/2022 | |||
| Total number of pending cases | 414 | 338 | ||
| Number of constitutional complaint cases | 385 | 312 | ||
| Number of judicial initiative cases | 10 | 10 | ||
| Number of posterior norm control procedures | 13 | 10 | ||
| Other | 6 | 6 | ||
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 September 2022 are available here >> (pdf)
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 >> (pdf)