The European Court of Human Rights has approved a settlement between Hungary and former lawmakers Bence Tordai and Péter Jakab. The state will reimburse pay withheld after fines imposed by the former parliamentary speaker.
Current parliamentary speaker Ágnes Forsthoffer announced the settlement, saying it would avoid further legal costs. In June, she said she intended to resolve the disputes, taking account of the European court’s previous decisions in similar cases.
Tordai, a former MP for the Dialogue party, had 8,233,440 forints in remuneration withheld after filming and following then-finance minister Mihály Varga with his phone on March 1, 2021. Jakab was fined 9,686,400 forints for using the term “ficsúrok,” or “posh boys,” in a May 2021 parliamentary speech while he was a Jobbik lawmaker.
Forsthoffer called the deductions excessive and said MPs’ financial independence was necessary to work free of outside pressure. She also said parliament planned to revise the law governing the legislature, which she described as setting excessively high minimum deductions.