Hungarian President Katalin Novak announced her resignation on Saturday, February 10, after the outrage caused in the country by her decision to pardon a convict involved in a child abuse case.
“I am renouncing my post,” declared this close friend of the nationalist Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, during a solemn speech, admitting to having made “a mistake.” In March 2022, she became the first woman to occupy this essentially ceremonial position.
The controversy arose following the pardon granted by Ms. Novak, in April 2023, on the occasion of Pope Francis’ visit to Budapest, to a former deputy director of a children’s home, sentenced in 2022 to more three years in prison for covering up the actions of his superior.
One of the victims committed suicide
Thousands of demonstrators gathered late Friday afternoon in the Hungarian capital to protest against this presidential pardon. The demonstration began with a minute of silence for the victims, then participants, sometimes coming with stuffed animals, were invited to raise their phones to pay tribute to one of the victims, who committed suicide.
Since the revelation by the investigative site 444 last week of this decision, the opposition has called for the departure of Ms. Novak, who was also a very conservative family minister (2020 – 2021) of Mr. Orban.
On Thursday, in an attempt to calm anger, Mr. Orban announced that he wanted to revise the Constitution in order to exclude the possibility of pardoning child molesters.