Significant Decisions of the Constitutional Court between 1 October and 31 December

Abstract

The Constitutional Court (hereinafter: CC) made 91 decisions in the fourth quarter of 2018. From these, 28 decisions were on the merits, meanwhile 63 were rejections on formal grounds. In the competences of posterior norm control and concrete norm control based judicial initiative the CC has annulled five legal regulations, in three cases it declared ban on the application of the law and it declared four times legislative omission. The mostly practiced competence of the CC is still the constitutional complaint procedure. In its competence, the Court annulled eight judicial decisions, it established in one case a constitutional requirement and declared one legislative omission. The Article summarises seven significant decisions of the CC from the last quarter of the year. The Court annulled the regulation allowing the disproportionate increase of noise pollution regarding the Formula-1 race [CC decision 17/2018. (X. 10.)]. The Court declared the unconstitutionality of a rule that permitted a disadvantageous retroactive modification of scholarship contracts of officers of the armed forces [CC decision 3331/2018. (X. 26.) AB]. The Court ruled that with regard to debating public affairs, the boundaries of the freedom of expression and of the press are set wider [CC decision 3348/2018. (XI. 12.) AB]. In the decision 19/2018. (XI. 12.) AB the CC annulled certain provisions on the national security clearing of prosecutors. The CC ruled that in case of reviewing the disability allowances, only real physical improvement can be taken into account when classifying a person in a better conditioned grade of disability [Decision no. 21/2018. (XI. 14.) AB]. The CC established that in a procedure related to the wrongful removal of a child, the ordinary court should use all the tools of evidence offered by the parties in the interest of clearly verifying the interests of the minor [CC decision 3375/2018. (XII. 5.) AB]. In the decision 24/2018. (XII. 28.) AB the CC established that due to the principle of fair trial, in the final judgement of a procedure at an ordinary court all of the elements of the contingent claims shall be examined on the merits by any of the judicial fora.