Our colleague, Judge Dr. Gaszton Oláh has submitted a complaint at the European Commission to request the EU body to declare that the inadequacy of the legal regulation of the remuneration of judges and judicial staff in Hungary has resulted in a persistent and systemic breach of the institutional independence of the judiciary, contrary to EU law. The report presented a detailed argumentation, statistical data and a comparative analysis of the decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union to show why it is worrying that the amount of the judicial salary base laid down in the Budget Act has remained unchanged for three years, so that, taking inflation into account, the salaries of judges and judicial staff have lost at least 40% of their real value in recent years.

Our association strongly agrees with the observation that the current remuneration system does not ensure the separation of the judiciary from the other two branches of power, because it does not include a mechanism to determine the remuneration of judges and judicial staff on the basis of objective and verifiable criteria, independent of the executive and the legislature, free from arbitrary interference. It thus makes the determination of salaries entirely dependent on the political will of the executive and the legislature, which is a systemic violation of the institutional independence of the judiciary.

We therefore call on our colleagues and citizens committed to judicial independence as a fundamental value of the democratic system to join the Hungarian judge’s initiative. Our association is happy to help, please contact us!

There is no strength without unity.

Here you can find the complaint our association submitted to the Commission:

COMPLAINT to the Commission EU

Board of the Res Iudicata Association