On October 23, 2019, the European Union (EU) adopted a whistleblower directive. States had two years to transpose it. At the time, it was about protecting anyone who reported breaches of EU law. But, in Hungary, the transposition was extended to other areas a few days ago. Under Justice Minister Judit Varga, the Hungarian regime created another protected category: citizens who, anonymously, would report violations of the country’s Basic Law and the “country’s way of life”.
It is under this register that Hungarian citizens can report an abuse consisting of “questioning the constitutionally recognized role of marriage and the family”. However, the regime of Viktor Orban registered, in 2012, that the Hungarian family was officially composed of a mother who is a woman and a father who is a man.
A way to exclude, except to change the Constitution of the country, the recognition of gay marriage. Concretely, citizens can therefore report families that are not composed according to the fundamental law. Which, for many, amounts to denouncing same-sex parenting.
A second case is provided which complements the first: citizens are entitled to report any situation where “the protection and care necessary for the good physical, mental and moral development of children, as well as the questioning of their right to identity according to their birth sex. It’s one thing that abuse – beaten, abused, malnourished – be reported, but how do you define when the identity of children according to their birth sex would be called into question?
The Hungarian law will come into force in just under two months. It completes in a way a very controversial first law on the banishment of homosexuality from communication. A law that is the subject of litigation before the Court of Justice of the European Union. Viktor Orban and his Fidesz friends are on slippery ground here as European funds are suspended pending reforms to the rule of law, currently being assessed by the Commission. Budapest is again waving the red flag vis-à-vis its partners.
