This Tuesday, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that Hungary had “violated EU law” by “stigmatizing and marginalizing” LGBT+ people.
Through this decision, the CJEU holds that the 2021 law, intended to introduce stricter measures against pedophiles and to protect minors, also restricts access to LGBT content in the media or bookstores.
In the same context, several NGOs in Hungary, including Amnesty International and the Helsinki Committee, hailed a “historic” decision. It confirms “that the exclusion and stigmatization policy of the Orban government has no place within the EU,” these NGOs note, and they also welcome that the Court finds “for the first time a violation of common values.”
This litigation constitutes one of the most high-profile clashes on human rights between the Hungarian nationalist Viktor Orbán’s government and its EU partners. Sixteen member states, including France and Germany, as well as the European Parliament, joined the legal action brought by the Commission, the first concerning a Member State. Brussels had announced the referral to the CJEU in July 2022.
Since the Hungarian law came into effect, audiovisual media are forbidden from broadcasting LGBT content during the day, and shops are barred from selling LGBT-themed products within a 200-meter radius of churches and schools.
As a reminder, Viktor Orbán, who has made defending children’s rights and family values one of his creeds, lost the legislative elections on April 12. His successor, the conservative Péter Magyar, addressed the LGBT+ community on the evening of his victory, stating that Hungary had decided that it wanted to be a country where “no one is stigmatized for loving differently or in a way that differs from the majority.”
