The European Commission is gearing up for its first hearing against Hungary and its controversial Child Protection Act that has been considered an anti-LGBT and discriminatory law.
The hearing took place on Tuesday in the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg. The Commission first deferred Hungary on the issue in December 2022, after the country adopted the law the year before. Hungary refused to back down, using a referendum that missed the threshold as evidence that its citizens were backing the law.
The Child Protection Act allegedly protects children from paedophilia’s threats, with zero tolerance for convicted paedophiles. However, most controversial, it forbids depictions of homosexuality and gender reassignment in any media and material that minors could access, conflating paedophilia with homosexuality. This means that Hungarian authorities can restrict any content that has any depiction of homosexuality.
The law came immediately under fire from European institutions and human rights associations. Children’s rights group Eurochild said that the law “risks harming the very children it claims to protect” and “it also contributes to a climate of fear, raising concerns for the well-being of all children and society.” The European Parliament in a resolution condemned the law in harsh terms. Other critics noted that the model was a similar law that Russia made in 2013 and that was eventually declared unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights.
In its deferral of the law presented to the ECJ, the European Commission claimed that law violates basic rights guaranteed by foundational European treaties. A record-breaking 15 member states backed the lawsuit as third parties: Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Austria, Ireland, Denmark, Malta, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Slovenia, France, Germany and Greece.
The ECJ should rule on the issue within the next three or four months. Potentially, the lawsuit can have far-reaching consequences for the EU. Besides keeping the drift between Hungary and the rest of the bloc, a potential ruling against the Central European country could trigger other measures.
According to John Morijn, a fellow in law and public policy at the Hertie School in Berlin quoted by Politico, a ruling by the ECJ could potentially change the mind of the European Council on triggering Article 7 of the EU Treaty, stripping Hungary of voting rights. So far, member states consider the move too risky, fearing a potential backlash. However, a ruling that states how Hungary violates basic foundational EU rights may convinced them to change their minds.
