Former Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom, a humanist jurist involved in the democratic transition and the abolition of capital punishment, died on Sunday October 8 at the age of 81. He died “after a long illness,” his personal secretary told Hungarian news agency MTI.
Laszlo Solyom was born on January 3, 1942 in Pecs, in the south of the country, and served as non-president of Hungary from 2005 to 2010, after serving as the first president of the Constitutional Court from 1990 to 1998. Under his presidency, the Hungarian supreme court ruled in particular on the abolition of the death penalty, abortion and compensation for victims of communism.
“We must stand up against intolerable injustices,” he declared in an interview on national radio in 2005. Faithful to his principles, from 1987 he played an active role in the change of regime of his country formerly included in the communist bloc. A founding member of the Democratic Forum (MDF, conservative), the party that won the first free elections in 1990, he took leave as soon as he was called to sit on the Constitutional Court.
After studying in his hometown and in Germany, he worked at the Law Institute of the Academy of Sciences (1969-1983) then as a law professor at ELTE University (1983-1989). Of a calm and modest nature, fluent in German, French and English, Mr. Solyom received the German Humboldt Prize in 1999 and, in 2003, the Imre Nagy Prize which rewards people who have contributed to the establishment of democracy.
Despite his criticism of the Hungarian Constitution limiting the independence of the judiciary adopted by Viktor Orban from 2011, and although he distanced himself from Hungarian power, the nationalist Prime Minister told him paid tribute on Facebook.
