The Hungarian Government has submitted a constitutional amendment that would remove President Tamás Sulyok from office, part of Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s drive to dismantle institutions built under his predecessor Viktor Orbán.
Magyar announced on July 4 that his Tisza party had filed the 17th amendment to the Fundamental Law with parliament. The change would end Sulyok’s mandate the day after it entered into force, with lawmakers given 30 days to elect a successor.
Tisza won April’s election with a two-thirds majority, enough to rewrite the constitution Orbán shaped across 16 years in power. Sulyok was appointed by a Fidesz-run parliament in 2024.
The prime minister has branded the campaign ‘Operation Purgatory’ and repeatedly urged the president to resign, accusing him of shielding the former government and neglecting his duties. Sulyok rejected a May 31 deadline to step down.
The president has refused to go, arguing that the amendment targets him personally rather than reforming the office and cannot be reconciled with the rule of law. He said he had never belonged to a party and had signed laws passed by the new majority.
Sulyok has referred the proposal to the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission, which is expected to examine it. He warned that power was increasingly being concentrated under the new government.
Fidesz, now the main opposition, condemned the plan. Parliamentary group leader Gergely Gulyás said it marked the end of constitutional democracy and the start of authoritarian rule, and claimed it would weaken the Constitutional Court and bar many opposition MPs from standing again.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International Hungary, both long-standing critics of Orbán, also questioned the process. They argued that removing Sulyok through a targeted amendment bypassed the existing impeachment route and rule-of-law safeguards.
For years Orbán’s government clashed with the European Union over rule-of-law standards. Similar concerns are now being raised in Brussels about his successor.
The amendment would also impose term limits on MPs, abolish the Parliamentary Guard and set up a new asset-recovery office. Magyar said Hungary would have a new head of state before the August 20 national holiday, though Sulyok maintained that holding a majority did not justify doing everything technically possible.
