The former head of Hungary’s supreme court urged the country’s constitutional court on Thursday to commit itself against hate speech, at a conference on anti-Semitism in Budapest.
He said the court has not responded for three years to his letter that requested an interpretation of the constitution on the question. This may be due to differences of opinion on the subject within the court, he said.
“It would be important that the Constitutional Court (CC) respond to my letter, because according to many people, currently no effective countenance is guaranteed in the courts’ practice against these extreme, isolated cases,” Zoltan Lomnici told MTI on the sidelines of a conference entitled Anti-Semitism in present-day Europe.
Such a commitment by the CC could help stopping such uncertainties, Lomnici said.
Hungarian society is tolerant and receptive, the number of anti-Semitic acts is not higher here than anywhere else in Europe, he said. However, there is need for more effective legal protection against such acts, Lomnici said.
Liberal philosopher Janos Kis, professor at the Central European University, said that hate speech ought to be regarded lawless as soon as possible. The freedom of speech cannot be unlimited, he added.
Hungarian society is gravely divided on this issue, Kis said, what is intolerable on one side is tolerable on the other, he added.
