“Creeping Authoritarianism” in Poland and Hungary: Ordo Iuris Calls for a Joint International Initiative

The Ordo Iuris Institute has responded to a joint statement by Hungarian lawyers, published on October 29 by András Schiffer, in which its signatories pointed to flagrant violations of the principles of the rule of law and criminal procedure. In a letter dated October 30, Jerzy Kwaśniewski, President of Ordo Iuris, stressed that the practices described are well known in Poland too, and proposed jointly establishing an initiative that would document and counter the erosion of the rule of law at the transnational level.

Hungarian lawyers sound the alarm

András Schiffer is a lawyer and former politician who, until 2016, led the opposition party Politics Can Be Different (now known as Hungary’s Green Party). The statement he published, entitled “Ten Points of Criminal Justice under the Rule of Law,” was signed by 32 lawyers and public figures. They include former judges and a former president of Hungary’s Constitutional Court, former ministers, a former Speaker of the National Assembly, and attorneys.

The signatories of the statement listed a number of violations of the elementary principles of the rule of law:

• bringing politicized charges and undermining the presumption of innocence;
• using pretrial detention to extract confessions, with detainees being treated inhumanely;
• handcuffing suspects for show, without any connection to any threat they might pose;
• harassing the defense attorneys who have agreed to represent them.

The same methods in Poland

In response to the Hungarians’ appeal, attorney Jerzy Kwaśniewski, President of the Ordo Iuris Institute, sent a letter to its authors in which he pointed out that these methods are, unfortunately, familiar from Poland as well. As he noted, Donald Tusk’s government has been employing them ever since it took power in December 2023, under the guise of supposed accountability and “restoring the rule of law” – just as Péter Magyar’s government has been doing in Hungary since May 2026.

In the view of the President of Ordo Iuris, both countries, bound by a close and historic friendship, have fallen victim to a troubling phenomenon: a rising tide of instrumentalization of the state and its institutions for the purposes of political struggle, without regard for democratic principles or individual rights. “What is worse, this is happening amid the far-reaching indifference, if not the outright support, of the institutions of the European Union, which, not so long ago, were so eager to cast themselves as guardians of the rule of law in our countries,” the letter reads.

Ordo Iuris joined in condemning the decline of the rule of law, manifested in abuses by those in power that are characteristic of creeping authoritarianism. The letter points out that more and more often, under the pretext of defending democracy, mechanisms of “militant democracy” are being introduced. They serve to justify breaches of constitutional guarantees and of the objective formal and substantive standards of the rule of law, including the fundamental guarantees of civil and political rights and freedoms. In this way, as Kwaśniewski stressed, democracy itself is negated.

Poland’s Rule of Law Observer as a model

The response recalled that in Poland, at the initiative of the Ordo Iuris Institute, a coalition of independent legal organizations has been formed around the Rule of Law Observer project. Its aim is to document all unlawful actions so that those responsible bear the appropriate political and legal consequences, their effects are reversed, and the rule of law is fully restored.

Violations are described on an ongoing basis on the obserwator-praworzadnosci.pl website.

Ordo Iuris has also devoted reports to this issue, including:

• “Violations of the Principles of the Democratic State of Law and the Rule of Law by the Government of Donald Tusk after December 13, 2023”;
• “Finding a Way Out of Poland’s Rule-of-Law Crisis – Possible Courses of Action and Reform,” submitted to the President of the Republic of Poland.

In the same spirit, Ordo Iuris proposed to the addressees of the letter that they jointly establish a similar initiative at the international level. It would serve to report on and counteract the very same processes of the erosion of the rule of law that have recently been gaining momentum, particularly in the European Union but also globally.

The Hungarian signatories’ letter

We, the undersigned lawyers, believe in the achievements of the regime change, which drew a clear line between the rule of law and the police state by guaranteeing the freedom of the individual against the freedom of those in power. We feel that these 37-year-old achievements are in danger today.

1) In a state governed by the rule of law, fundamental human rights are due to everyone equally, including those who have broken the law. Proceedings in keeping with the rule of law are indispensable even when society rightly expects accountability in a given case.

2) In a state governed by the rule of law, everyone is entitled to the presumption of innocence. The presumption of innocence requires that the authorities not bring suspects before them shackled from head to toe when there is no concrete security risk. The presumption of innocence and the requirement of a fair trial are violated by the practice of turning criminal proceedings into humiliating and intimidating political spectacles staged in front of the media.

3) In a state governed by the rule of law, detention is not punishment imposed in advance, but a necessary and proportionate deprivation of the accused’s personal liberty for the purpose of successfully conducting criminal proceedings.

4) In a state governed by the rule of law, detention is an institution subject to strict statutory conditions: it may be applied only where there is a real and well-founded risk of flight, of absconding, of reoffending, or of obstructing the gathering of evidence. It is utterly absurd to invoke these grounds against persons for whom reoffending is by definition impossible, who have been aware for months of the proceedings being prepared, who reported voluntarily to the investigating authorities, and who, had they so intended, could have destroyed the evidence long ago.

5) In a state governed by the rule of law, the purpose of detention cannot be to break the detainee or to extract confessions. Deprivation of liberty ordered on trumped-up grounds is torture that serves not legality, but a demonstration of the power of those in authority and intimidation.

6) In a state governed by the rule of law, judicial competence over deprivation of liberty serves to protect rights. The 1989 amendment to the Code of Criminal Procedure, including the transfer of pretrial detention – as it was then called – to the jurisdiction of the courts, reflected a changed understanding of the relationship between the state and the individual and the growing value placed on personal liberty. Automatically ordered detentions hollow out judicial protection of rights and render it superfluous.

7) In a state governed by the rule of law, under statutory regulations, handcuffs may be used only where there is a risk of escape, of assault, of self-harm, or in the event of resistance.

8) In a state governed by the rule of law, a coercive measure cannot be a humiliating and intimidating political spectacle. Leading suspects away on a leash, in the crossfire of cameras, violates the requirement of proportionality.

9) In a state governed by the rule of law, there is no acceptable justification for surveilling a defense attorney.

10) In a state governed by the rule of law, the sole purpose of criminal proceedings can be to establish the objective truth, not to confirm a political narrative.

• Péter Hack, professor emeritus, former member of the National Assembly;
• Gábor Fodor, former minister, former member of the National Assembly;
• András Schiffer, attorney, former member of the National Assembly;
• Mihály Bihari, professor emeritus, former president of the Constitutional Court, former member of the National Assembly;
• László Bodolai, attorney;
• Zoltán Borbély, attorney;
• Rudolf Garay, attorney;
• István Gortvay, attorney;
• András Grundtner, public-law official;
• Róbert Juharos, attorney, former member of the National Assembly;
• András Koltay, university professor;
• Imre Kónya, attorney, founder and leader of the Independent Lawyers’ Forum, former minister of the interior;
• Mária Kóródi, former member of the National Assembly and Deputy Speaker of Parliament, former minister;
• Tamás Kötter, writer, attorney;
• István Kukorelli, professor emeritus, former judge of the Constitutional Court;
• Dániel Kurucz, editor-in-chief of Köztér;
• Zoltán Lomnici Jr., attorney;
• Botond Mándics, attorney;
• István László Mészáros, attorney, former member of the National Assembly;
• Angelika Mihalik, attorney;
• Tibor Navracsics, associate professor, former minister and former member of the National Assembly, former member of the European Commission;
• Zsolt Németh, retired police colonel, associate professor;
• Márta Pankucsi, legal sociologist, university lecturer;
• Béla Pokol, professor emeritus, former judge of the Constitutional Court;
• Róbert Répássy, attorney, former state secretary for justice;
• Gyöngyvér Schillinger, writer;
• István Stumpf, university professor, Széchenyi Prize laureate, former judge of the Constitutional Court, former minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office;
• Tamás Szép, attorney, municipal councilor;
• István Szikinger, attorney;
• Katalin Szili, former Speaker of the National Assembly;
• Zoltán Szotyori-Lázár, attorney, specialist in compliance law;
• Máté Tóth, attorney, energy lawyer, university lecturer.

See also:

• Hungary’s 2026 Elections Assessed as Free and Fair Despite External Pressures
• Tusk Is Destroying the Rule of Law in Poland with Brussels’ Support—but We Know How to Rebuild It
• The EU’s Rule of Law Conditionality Mechanism: A Case for Suppression, Not Reform
• When Defending the Rule of Law Serves Politics: The European Commission’s Report on Poland
• Ordo Iuris Experts Raise the Alarm in Poland: “The Tusk Government Systematically Violates the Principles of a Democratic State Governed by the Rule of Law”