Hungary’s parliament has enacted the most far-reaching constitutional amendment since the collapse of Fidesz’s rule.

The 17th Amendment to the Fundamental Law was passed by 139 votes to six. Fidesz and KDNP refused to participate. Mi Hazánk stood aside.

If President Tamás Sulyok signs, his own mandate will expire the next day. Four Constitutional Court judges, among them the former chief prosecutor Péter Polt, will also be removed under a reinstated retirement age of seventy.

The amendment imposes a three-term limit on MPs, restores elements of the Constitutional Court’s authority, strips the Budget Council of its veto, reshapes senior judicial appointments, lays the constitutional groundwork for a new asset-recovery authority, and undoes several of the symbolic alterations of the Fidesz era.

Sulyok has five days to sign or to refer the amendment to the Constitutional Court on procedural grounds.

This marks a historic rupture with the constitutional order constructed under Viktor Orbán. It is also a display of parliamentary power on a scale that will reverberate well beyond the immediate removal of a few office-holders.

Source: Telex.