Hungarian parliament suspends immunity for PM Magyar, two Orban-era ministers

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary’s Parliament voted on Monday to lift the parliamentary immunity of three lawmakers, including the country’s prime minister, Peter Magyar, as prosecutors proceed with ongoing criminal investigations.

Prosecutors are investigating Magyar on suspicion of misdemeanor theft after he allegedly took a man’s mobile phone during a nightclub altercation and threw it into the Danube River in June 2024, nearly two years before his party won a landslide election that unseated former populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Magyar has denied that his conduct amounted to theft and called the case, which alleges damages scarcely exceeding $300, politically motivated.

He has also criticized prosecutors for requesting the lifting of his immunity at the same time as that of two former Orban-era ministers, whose alleged crimes involved misusing tens of millions of dollars in public funds and accepting millions more in bribes.

Prior to the vote, Magyar told lawmakers that he had “not committed a crime. I take responsibility for all my actions.”

“Anyone who has nothing to hide comes forward openly,” he said, referring to his earlier request that his party vote in favor of lifting his immunity.

Immunity for members of Parliament, a common practice in European democracies, is designed to protect lawmakers from political persecution, allowing them to perform their duties and express opinions freely without fear of arrest or lawsuits from the government.

Hungary’s former government under right-wing Orban had sought to have Magyar’s immunity lifted when he was a lawmaker in the European Parliament, but the body repeatedly refused.

Lawmakers on Monday also voted to suspend the immunity of two former ministers in Orban’s government who are suspected of, separately, criminal mismanagement of 17.3 billion forints ($53.6 million) of public funds and accepting more than 12 billion forints ($37.2 million) in bribes and kickbacks.

The cases involve some of the highest-level officials from Orban’s government implicated in crimes now being investigated under Magyar’s new administration, part of a sweeping effort to uncover what the government describes as years of massive fraud and theft of public funds under Orban.

Parliament on Monday lifted the immunity of Balazs Hanko, the former minister of culture under Orban’s government, who is alleged to have overseen the misuse of around $53.6 million from Hungary’s National Cultural Fund.

Prosecutors allege Hanko personally intervened to award money from the fund — intended to support cultural projects — based on political considerations, and to cover campaign costs for Orban’s Fidesz party in the run-up to the election in April.

Prosecutors also suspect Orban’s former Development Minister Miklos Sesztak, whose immunity was also suspended, of accepting more than $37.2 million in bribes and kickbacks connected to vehicle procurements under Hungary’s state bus company, as well as to state construction projects.

Lawmakers from Fidesz and its coalition party, the Christian Democrats, did not take part in Monday’s vote, calling the charges against their lawmakers political tyranny by Magyar’s government.

None of the lawmakers whose immunity was lifted has been indicted.