Hungary’s parliament voted on Monday to amend the constitution, immediately terminating the mandate of President Tamás Sulyok. The amendment, passed with 139 votes in favour and six against, marks the first use of Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s two-thirds majority to remove a senior state official installed under former premier Viktor Orbán. Sulyok, who has five days to sign the measure into law, has so far refused to step down voluntarily.

Magyar, whose Tisza party won a landslide in April, has described Sulyok and other Orbán-era appointees as ‘puppets’ who lost legitimacy by failing to challenge abuses of power. He told parliament that the old system had made ‘the will of a single man the source of legislative work’ and that his mandate required dismantling it. Fidesz, now in opposition, boycotted the vote and staged a protest last week, with party leader Viktor Orbán denouncing the move as arbitrary. International rights organisations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have cautioned that the removal of a head of state through a constitutional amendment, rather than established impeachment procedures, risks undermining due process. However, some Hungarian legal figures, such as former Supreme Court President András Baka, argue that the country had become a ‘captured state’ under Orbán and that extraordinary measures are justified to restore constitutional order.

The amendment also introduces a 12-year term limit for members of parliament, a measure that would bar several prominent opposition figures—including Orbán, who has held a seat since 1990—from standing in 2030. It reinstates a mandatory retirement age of 70 for Constitutional Court judges, forcing out four of the 15 members, among them court president Péter Polt, a close Orbán ally. Additionally, a new National Asset Recovery and Protection Office is to be created with broad powers to investigate corruption, which watchdogs had described as endemic under the previous government. The package, which Magyar has called ‘Operation Purgatory’, is presented as a transitional step ahead of a broader constitutional convention planned for the autumn.

Sulyok has petitioned the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe for an advisory opinion, arguing that the ad personam removal violates the separation of powers. A commission delegation visited Budapest in early July, but its findings are pending. If Sulyok refuses to sign within the five-day window, Magyar has pledged to initiate impeachment proceedings, which would suspend the president and allow the Tisza-affiliated speaker of parliament to enact the law. The standoff thus places Hungary’s new government and the remnants of the Orbán-era institutional guard on a collision course, with the outcome likely to shape the legitimacy of the wider constitutional reset.