In a contentious decision on Tuesday, the European Parliament denied the Hungarian government’s request to remove the immunity of MEPs Péter Magyar, Ilaria Salis, and Klára Dobrev. As part of their legal actions against the MEPs, the Hungarian authorities asked that their immunity be lifted.
Hungary’s opposition leader Péter Magyar, who presently leads Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in opinion polls ahead of next year’s elections in Hungary, requested that his immunity be waived, but the parliamentarians denied their pleas.
Prior to the decision, the Parliament’s JURI legal committee suggested taking this action, citing concerns about Magyar’s ability to get a fair trial in Hungary. Hungary sought legal action against Magyar, a member of the EPP political group, but the lawmakers rejected its request by a show of hands.
The other two instances concern claimed defamation claims brought by the far-right Our Homeland Movement and György Simonka, a former member of the Hungarian parliament.Orbán claimed that Brussels can now exploit Magyar’s immunity to demand favors from a guy who acts “like a Trojan horse of Ukraine in the EU” in response to Tuesday’s vote in the European Parliament.
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