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The amendment stipulates that the incumbent president’s mandate will terminate the day after the legislation enters into force. Prime Minister Péter Magyar said in a video posted on Facebook on Saturday that Sulyok’s mandate will end at 0:00 on July 20.
Parliament must elect a new president within 30 days, Magyar said.
Sulyok said in a video posted on social media that, as president, he cannot refer constitutional amendments to the Constitutional Court for substantive review. He said he therefore had no constitutional means to challenge the amendment, despite what he described as its potential conflict with constitutional principles.
He said that by signing the amendment, he was fulfilling his duty under the Fundamental Law after carefully considering his legal options and his conscience.
“My signature is the final seal of my presidential duty and a sign of my absolute respect for the office of the president under all circumstances,” Sulyok said.
Sulyok said he had always upheld the Fundamental Law and fulfilled his duties with full respect for it. He said he could not refuse to sign the amendment without violating the law.
At the same time, he sharply criticized the amendment, calling it a “serious and shameful historical example of abuse of political power, marking a breaking point in Hungary’s constitutional democracy and inflicting deep wounds on its core values: democracy, separation of powers, and the rule of law.”
“The fundamental values of a free society … have been trampled for the sake of political interest. The sole responsibility for this decision lies with the constitutional amending authority,” Sulyok said.
He added that the amendment “effectively ended the democratic rule-of-law state born from the legacy of 1956 and the regime change, as well as the unchanged legitimacy of the presidential office since 1990.”
“After its enactment, the presidency will become subservient to the executive and politics, its public law role would fade, its core functions would cease, and it would no longer serve as a check or balance,” Sulyok said.
Opposition party Fidesz said in a statement Saturday that “open tyranny has arrived in Hungary” as a result of the actions of Magyar and the Tisza Party.
“Magyar and the Tisza Party have launched a violent attack on the president in a way that was unprecedented in the European Union, putting him in an undignified position, pressuring him and finally arbitrarily removing him from office. This is without precedent in Hungary since the darkest dictatorships,” Fidesz said.
The party said Sulyok had become a victim of political violence by Tisza and accused Magyar of pushing Hungary into a constitutional crisis.
“If this can be done with the president today, then anything can be done with anyone in Hungary tomorrow,” the party said.
Fidesz said its parliamentary group would use its remaining tools against what it called autocracy and would support all forms of peaceful and legal resistance.
Viktor Orbán, leader of Fidesz and former prime minister, also criticized the developments on Facebook.
“Today, the last obstacle was toppled. Authority is not a threat any longer but reality,” Orbán said. “If this can be done to the president of the republic, no one is safe any longer.”
Magyar said Sulyok’s signature removed “the last obstacle” to joint decisions entering into force.
“The mandate of the president will cease, the Constitutional Court will be liberated, judicial self-administration will be strengthened, and there will be a constitutional basis for the establishment of the National Asset Recovery and Asset Protection Office,” Magyar said.
He noted that the amendment also limits the mandate of members of Parliament to 12 years.
“This is significant not only because it fulfils important commitments. With these decisions they are returning something to the Hungarian people that the Orbán regime tried to take away, the certainty that power can be limited, public funds can be recovered, and the state can once again serve free Hungarian citizens,” Magyar said.
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