Hungary’s President Tamas Sulyok has accepted a decision by the Constitutional Court of Hungary that effectively halted his attempt to seek constitutional protection against efforts by the prime minister to remove him from office, a major setback for the former head of the Constitutional Court, Nepszava.hu writes.

The dispute centres on Peter Magyar's campaign to remove several senior state officials associated with the previous political establishment, including Sulyok. According to Magyar, voters gave the new government a sweeping mandate after the landslide election victory to carry out institutional change that also includes the removal of Sulyok and other Orban-era appointees. After Sulyok refused to step down, the prime minister said he was ready to use legislation and, if necessary, constitutional amendments to secure the president's departure.

In response, Sulyok turned to the Venice Commission, asking for their legal assessment of the situation and last week, he turned to the Constitutional Court, the court he led between 2016 and 2024, asking whether a sitting president could be removed through a targeted constitutional amendment and whether the court had authority to review such a move. The petition was widely seen as an attempt to secure legal safeguards for his position before the government moved ahead with its plans.

According to political analyst Szabolcs Dull, the Hungarian President had turned to the Constitutional Court in the expectation that judges would pre-emptively declare any future constitutional amendment aimed at removing him unconstitutional.

On June 19, the president of the court, Peter Polt, the former chief prosecutor, initially placed the case on the agenda for a hearing on June 22. The fast proceeding case drew instant criticism from the Tisza Party, while a majority of judges reportedly argued that the petition was either inadmissible or outside the court’s competence.

According to reports from independent media Hvg.hu and Telex.hu, many judges were uncomfortable with reviewing what was essentially a hypothetical legal scenario. Several argued that the court could not issue a substantive ruling on a constitutional amendment that did not yet exist, while some questioned whether the petition should even be placed on the agenda

The internal opposition culminated in an extraordinary development: seven of the court's 15 judges recused themselves from the case, exposing unusually deep divisions inside the court. Their withdrawal left the court without the quorum required to issue a ruling, making it impossible to proceed.

Under Hungarian law, the full court requires at least ten judges to be present to reach a decision. The recusals forced Polt, a former Fidesz MP and ally of Viktor Orban, to cancel the extraordinary session and remove the case from the agenda.

The presidential office released a statement saying Sulyok had taken note of the judges’ decision and offered no further challenge. Prime Minister Peter Magyar, in talks with EU officials in Brussels, described the events as "the attempt by Sulyok and people behind him for a constitutional coup has failed."

He offered a characteristically colourful interpretation of events, saying: "One of Orbán's puppets wrote to another of Orbán's puppets, but the rest of Orbán's puppets rebelled."

Sulyok, a former head of the Constitutional Court, "should have known the boundaries of the court ... he should have known that the Constitutional Court is not a political shelter for the public dignitaries of a failed regime, not even if Peter Polt is the incumbent head," Magyar said.

The development represented a major embarrassment for Sulyok, whose attempt to obtain constitutional clarification collapsed before judges could even begin discussing the case's substance.

Dull described the move as a rebellion within the court itself. In his assessment, the judges were unwilling to "assist in the operation to defend Sulyok" and preferred to distance themselves from a politically explosive dispute. Faced with the deadlock, Polt withdrew the case from the agenda. The extraordinary session convened specifically to discuss Sulyok's petition was cancelled, and the issue disappeared from the court's upcoming schedule

The episode has exposed divisions within one of Hungary's most important state institutions and left Sulyok politically more isolated. As Dull noted, many of the judges who once worked alongside the former Constitutional Court president now appear unwilling to become involved in what increasingly looks like an unavoidable political battle over his future.

The collapse of the petition represents a setback for Sulyok and gives fresh momentum to Magyar’s campaign to remove senior officeholders linked to the previous administration, he argued.