Summary of the case-load data of the Constitutional Court for the year 2024 and for the fourth quarter

The Constitutional Court publishes detailed aggregated data on its case-load on a quarterly basis. Below is a summary of the data for the fourth quarter of 2024, as well as aggregated data for the full year. The Constitutional Court’s website provides tables with general data >> and separate annual data on the handling of constitutional complaints >>.

The graph below shows the evolution of annual case-load from 2013 onwards:

 

 

Regarding detailed data from the last year, in 2024, a total of 498 new cases were referred to a rapporteur Justice of the Constitutional Court, a slight decrease compared to the number of new cases opened in 2023 (549). The table and graph below show the distribution of newly opened cases by fields of competence. The table also includes 2023 data for comparison.

 

		2024	2023
Total number of new cases referred to rapporteur justices		498	549
	Number of constitutional complaints	459	511
	Number of judicial initiatives	35	29
	Number of posterior norm controls	3	7
	Other	1	2

 

New case data for the fourth quarter of 2024 (1 October to 31 December) are as follows. This comparison is based on data for the fourth quarter of the previous year.

 

		4/2024	4/2023
Total number of new cases referred to rapporteur justices		102	109
	Number of constitutional complaints	88	100
	Number of judicial initiatives	13	7
	Number of posterior norm controls	1	1
	Other	0	1

 

Data on case-load have developed as follows over the last two years, broken down by quarter.

 

The relative proportions of the different case types to each other in the new cases assigned to Justices of the Constitutional Court in 2024 were as follows:

 

 

The total figures for cases completed in 2024 are close to those for the year 2023. The bodies (plenary and panels) closed 527 cases, of which 91 cases were decided on the merits. The table below shows the main figures for cases completed in 2024, together with the figures for 2023. The table shows that there has been a slight decrease in the number of cases completed by the bodies. The decrease mainly concerns the number of dismissal rulings issued in the procedure for the admission of constitutional complaints. At the same time, there has been a significant increase in the number of cases completed in the preparatory procedure before the Secretary-General. This is due to the fact that, despite the statutory provision, a large number of constitutional complaints continue to be filed and, since May 2023, these complaints are not sent by the Constitutional Court to the court of first instance, but the case is closed and the petitioner is informed of the rules for filing a constitutional complaint.

 

	2023	2024
Total number of cases completed by the bodies	527	596
Total number of cases concluded with a decision on the merits	91	86
Annulment of a court / administrative decision	20	21
Full/partial annulment of a law, provision of the law	6	8
Establishing a constitutional requirement	2	2
Establishing an omission	3	5
Rejecting the admission of a constitutional complaint	405	465
Number of cases completed in the preparatory procedure before the Secretary-General and by ruling of a single judge	1102	842

 

The graph below shows the evolution of the number of completed cases from 2013 onwards in annual breakdown:

 

 

The next table shows the main data in the 4^th quarter of 2024 for completed cases. In this case, too, due to seasonality, the table contains data for the fourth quarter of the previous year for comparability.

 

	4/2024	4/2023
Total number of cases completed by the bodies	157	158
Total number of cases concluded with a decision on the merits	21	17
Annulment of a court / administrative decision	6	4
Full/partial annulment of a law, provision of the law	1	0
Rejecting the admission of a constitutional complaint	125	138
Number of cases completed in the preparatory procedure before the Secretary-General and by ruling of a single judge	230	205

 

The evolution of the quarterly data on completed cases is shown in the graph below for the previous two years:

 

 

The average time for the handling of constitutional complaint cases completed by the bodies in 2024 was 275 days from the filing of the petition, a development compared to the average time in the two previous years. In this context, 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 the average administration time in annual breakdown.

 

 

In 2024, in 20 cases of constitutional complaints, the Constitutional Court issued a decision annulling the judicial decisions challenged in the petition. A list of annulled judgements and annulled Constitutional Court decisions can be found on the Constitutional Court's website here (in Hungarian)>>, where lists for previous years are also available.

 

 

The following graphs also refer to constitutional complaints.

The first one shows, by year, how many of the constitutional complaints filed in a given year were decided on the merits, how many were closed without a decision on the merits (e.g. in the course of the preparatory procedure of the Secretary-General, or in the case of a rejection or termination in the admission procedure), and how many cases were admitted but are still pending. For the 2024 figures, it should be taken into account that the preparatory procedure of the Secretary-General is still ongoing for some motions filed in the last weeks of last year, therefore these cases are not yet included in the data. In any case, the graph shows that on average about ten percent of constitutional complaints are decided on the merits.

 

 

The next graph shows comparative data for the last 9 years of constitutional complaint procedures initiated under section 27 of the Constitutional Court Act. This is the type of constitutional complaint based on which the Constitutional Court examines the constitutionality of a judicial decision, and does not carry out norm control. The years indicate the year in which the motion was filed. However, when analysing the data for motions filed in the past two years, it should be taken into account that a relatively large number of these are still pending, therefore the data for this period will change in the future.

 

 

The next graph demonstrates the proportion of constitutional complaint cases closed with a decision on the merits in 2024, according to the fields of law concerned.

 

 

Finally, for completed cases, a diagram showing the distribution of adopting decisions on the merits between the plenary session and the panels.

 

 

Further details on handling constitutional complaints, broken down by calendar year, are available here on the website of the Constitutional Court>>.

The Constitutional Court has several powers of normative review, not of a court decision, but of a legislative act that is contrary to the Fundamental Law. In this competence, in 2024, the Constitutional Court annulled laws or provisions of legislation in 6 cases. A list of annulled Constitutional Court decisions can be found on the Constitutional Court's website here (in Hungarian)>>, where lists for previous years are also available.

The Constitutional Court, also largely in the exercise of its powers of normative review, has in several decisions established constitutional requirements and also infringements of the Fundamental Law by omission. An overview list of the current outstanding legislative omissions (in Hungarian)>> and tables summarising the constitutional requirements identified by the Constitutional Court (in Hungarian) >> are available on the website of the Constitutional Court.

The graph below shows data for the last 12 years on the annulment of provisions of the law, conflicts with the Fundamental Law manifested in omissions and the setting of constitutional requirements.

 

 

The examination of judicial initiatives is an important power of the Constitutional Court aimed at the review of norms. In such a case, a judge, in the course of adjudicating a case pending before him or her, discovers that the law to be applied in the case is unconstitutional and therefore requests the Constitutional Court to examine the law or legislative provision challenged by the judge. In 2024, the Constitutional Court received 35 of such judicial initiatives, a figure which is slightly higher than in the recent years. The two graphs below show the number of judicial initiatives and annual data, back to 2013, on handling them.

 

 

 

The tables containing detailed data on previous years’ case-load and statistics, as well as quarterly summaries and graphs, are available here on the website of the Constitutional Court >>.