Hungary's Parliament Lifts Immunity of PM Magyar and Two Orbán-Era Ministers

Hungary's Parliament voted on Monday to suspend the parliamentary immunity of three lawmakers, including the country's prime minister, Péter Magyar, clearing the way for prosecutors to proceed with criminal investigations against them.

Magyar is being investigated on suspicion of misdemeanor theft over an allegation that he took a man's mobile phone during a nightclub altercation and threw it into the Danube River in June 2024 — nearly two years before his party won a landslide election that unseated former populist prime minister Viktor Orbán.

Magyar has denied that his conduct amounted to theft and described the case, which alleges damages barely exceeding $300, as politically motivated. Ahead of the vote, he told lawmakers he had "not committed a crime" and would take responsibility for all his actions, adding that "anyone who has nothing to hide comes forward openly." He had earlier asked his party to vote in favour of lifting his immunity.

He also criticised prosecutors for seeking to lift his immunity at the same time as that of two former Orbán-era ministers, whose alleged offences involved the misuse of tens of millions of dollars in public funds and the acceptance of millions more in bribes.

Lawmakers also voted to suspend the immunity of Balázs Hankó, the former culture minister under Orbán, who is alleged to have overseen the misuse of around $53.6 million from Hungary's National Cultural Fund. Prosecutors allege Hankó personally intervened to award money from the fund — intended to support cultural projects — on political grounds and to cover campaign costs for Orbán's Fidesz party in the run-up to April's election.

Orbán's former development minister, Miklós Seszták, also had his immunity suspended. Prosecutors suspect him of accepting more than $37.2 million in bribes and kickbacks linked to vehicle procurements at Hungary's state bus company and to state construction projects.

The two former ministers are suspected, separately, of criminal mismanagement of 17.3 billion forints ($53.6 million) in public funds and of accepting more than 12 billion forints ($37.2 million) in bribes and kickbacks.

The cases involve some of the highest-level officials from Orbán's government to be implicated in crimes now under investigation by Magyar's new administration, part of a sweeping effort to uncover what the government describes as years of massive fraud and theft of public funds under Orbán.

Immunity for members of Parliament, a common practice in European democracies, is designed to shield lawmakers from political persecution so they can perform their duties and express opinions freely without fear of arrest or lawsuits from the government. Hungary's former government under Orbán had sought to have Magyar's immunity lifted when he was a lawmaker in the European Parliament, but the body repeatedly refused.

Lawmakers from Fidesz and its coalition partner, the Christian Democrats, did not take part in Monday's vote, calling the charges against their lawmakers political tyranny by Magyar's government. None of the lawmakers whose immunity was lifted have been indicted.