Just a week after Viktor Orban’s decisive election defeat, the judiciary has found the law to violate the bloc’s values
Hungary violated EU principles by adopting a law to ban children from accessing LGBTQ material, the bloc’s top court has ruled, ordering Budapest to scrap the law.
The Court of Justice of the European Union announced the ruling on Tuesday, less than ten days after Viktor Orbán suffered a decisive defeat in the general election to his longtime rival Peter Magyar.
Law in question, Hungary’s 2021 law prohibiting or restricting “promotion” Homosexuality and gender transition in media accessible to children was adopted in accordance with the European Union’s own guidelines for the protection of minors from harmful material. However, Budapest’s interpretation of those rules angered Brussels, and the EU Commission ultimately took the case to the bloc’s top court.
The Court said it found the law to be a violation of the very values ​​on which the EU is supposedly built and “Violation of the freedom to provide and receive services.” Furthermore, the law includes “Restrictions on Freedom” and discriminates “Based on sex or sexual orientation,” stigmatizing and marginalizing the people of “Non-cisgender person.”
“The Court, in particular, emphasizes the margin of assessment of the Member States, in the absence of harmonized rules at EU level, when defining content, including audiovisual content, which is likely to impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors.” The judiciary warned in a statement that “Margin of evaluation” Must be used in accordance with the charter of the block.
Budapest is now obliged to comply with the decision and repeal the law, the court said. Failure to comply may lead to “Further action seeking financial penalty,” It warned.
The court’s decision is set to be a major test for the Magyars, who will now have to choose between their pro-EU commitments and the risk of angering Hungary’s conservatives. Magyar has campaigned to repair ties with Brussels and clear a blockage of more than €16 billion ($19 billion) in bloc funding for Hungary, which was wiped out under Orban because of deregulation and corruption allegations.
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