Adoption of the New Fundamental Law

On 25 April 2011, the Orbán government adopted Hungary’s new Fundamental Law, which took effect on 1 January 2012. Although the protection of minorities formally remained in the text, the preamble to the Fundamental Law, the so-called National Creed, obscures Hungary’s responsibility, including with regard to the Holocaust: “We date the restoration of our country’s state sovereignty, lost on 19 March 1944, from 2 May 1990, the date of the formation of the first freely elected representative body.” Nazi Germany occupied Hungary on 19 March 1944; the preamble thus absolves the country of responsibility for all tragic events that occurred after that date. The Orbán government’s politics of memory, which gained ground in subsequent years, confirmed the fears already expressed in 2011.