Removing Tamás Sulyok by amending the Fundamental Law bypasses the legal safeguards that exist for exactly this kind of situation. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Helsinki Committee all flagged that the process lacked proper procedural guarantees — and constitutional lawyer Péter Hack warned the move causes more damage than it prevents. Rushing a constitutional amendment through with a shortened comment period is not democratic reform; it's raw political power dressed up as one.
Keeping Tamás Sulyok in office after a democratic transition would have left Fidesz's institutional grip firmly in place, and that's exactly the problem the 17th amendment was designed to fix. Sulyok actively worked against EU integration, resisted aid to Ukraine and upheld policies the new government was elected to reverse. Orbán's refusal to recognize the incoming president as legitimate — while offering zero specifics on what "resistance" means — exposes Fidesz as unwilling to accept democratic outcomes it doesn't control.
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