Anger against Orban’s ‘slave laws’ galvanises opposition
A growing opposition movement in Budapest is threatening to spread across Hungary and capitalise on protests in which a member of parliament was sent to hospital and others were manhandled on camera.
Crowds of up to 15,000 have marched through the city to call for the scrapping of “slave laws” that increase the amount of overtime workers could be forced into from 250 hours a month to 400.
The rules, enacted by the far-right leader Viktor Orban, also mean employers can withhold payment for as long as three years on overtime work. Previously, it was only a year.
The confrontation turned violent when at least 2,000 people, including 12 MPs, showed up outside the state broadcaster MTVA on Monday to voice their fury that their views were not being heard.
Some camped inside the broadcaster and two politicians tried to break into a studio to read a list of demands but were thrown out.
Reports said the marchers were angry at the network’s pro-government line and chanted “Viktator”. They were also enraged by a law enacted last week that creates a parallel administrative court system dealing with cases affecting human rights, such as elections, the right to asylum and assembly and complaints against police brutality.
Human Rights Watch said the law posed “a new threat to the independence of the country’s judiciary”.
The watchdog said the new courts would be at risk of “significant political interference by the executive” because the
justice minister would have far-reaching powers, including the choice of judges. This would make “a mockery of the separation of powers and rule of law”, said Lydia Gall, the group’s researcher for Eastern Europe and western Balkans.
Europe’s centre-right political leadership has split in the face of demands to expel Mr Orban from the centrist movement as he centralises control.
Istvan Ujhelyi, an EU Parliament member opposed to the Hungarian government, said the demands were to withdraw the “slave law”, less overtime for police, an independent judiciary and media and to join the European public prosecutor’s office.
Mr Orban, Prime Minister since 2010 and from 1998 to 2002, has attracted support over his hardline approach to migration and his conservative outlook.
Detractors describe him as a threat to Hungarian democracy.
Despite the recent uproar, there is no immediate prospect that Mr Orban’s tenure is at risk of ending.
His supporters have rubbished the opposition and accused them of being paid activists.
They like to accuse Mr Orban’s detractors of being supported by billionaire George Soros, whose liberal and pro-migration stances are in stark contrast to those of the Hungarian government.
The laws increase the overtime limit from 250 hours a month to 400 and allow pay for it to be withheld for three years