MOSCOW, September 29. /TASS/. The termination of Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar’s immunity and the attempt to remove him from office over a restaurant dispute are symptomatic of the modern system of governance, Nikolay Mezhevich, Chief Researcher at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in an opinion piece for TASS.
Earlier, Hungary’s parliament stripped Magyar - who is accused of taking another person’s mobile phone - of his parliamentary immunity. By a majority vote, lawmakers approved the prosecutor’s office’s request to lift the prime minister’s immunity from prosecution, paving the way for criminal proceedings against him.
"History knows of rulers who committed all manner of transgressions, including serious crimes, yet remained at the helm for decades and often acted in the interests of their states. But when an attempt is made to effectively remove the prime minister of a major European country with deep-rooted traditions from office over an old restaurant quarrel on the banks of the Danube, that is a diagnosis of the modern system of governance," Mezhevich wrote.
"Hungary’s state policy on the global stage cannot and should not depend on such trifles. On a global scale, these are precisely trifles," he added.
Mezhevich argued that the classical model of state governance and diplomacy had traditionally ruled out such precedents.
"Even half a century ago, it would have been impossible to imagine a domestic dispute over a phone becoming the pretext - I emphasize, the pretext - for decisions of such fundamental importance as stripping a national leader of immunity," he said.
"This logic cannot be adequately translated into Hungarian, Russian, German, or any other language of classical diplomacy," Mezhevich added.
"If this logic were applied, for example, to British leaders, no one would have managed to remain in Downing Street throughout the 20th century. They were all involved in various scandals. Many resigned, but many remained in office for quite a long time. If one wanted to find fault, one could have done so even with the ‘Iron Lady,’ Margaret Thatcher," the columnist said.
On the lifting of immunity
Magyar is not only prime minister but also a member of parliament, where his Tisza party holds more than two-thirds of the seats. He himself requested that his parliamentary immunity be lifted, saying he was prepared to cooperate with the investigation and had nothing to fear.
In June 2024, Magyar took a mobile phone from a person who was filming him in a nightclub and threw it into the Danube. The prime minister has claimed that the previous authorities were attempting to orchestrate a provocation against him.