Hungary’s parliament on 13 July approved a constitutional amendment that would force President Tamás Sulyok to sign his own removal from office, part of a sweeping institutional overhaul by Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s government. The legislation also caps parliamentary mandates at twelve years and sets a mandatory retirement age of seventy for Constitutional Court judges. Sulyok, a former ally of ex-premier Viktor Orbán, has until 18 July to endorse the amendment; Magyar has warned that refusal will trigger impeachment proceedings.

The new government, which took office in May after a landslide election victory, describes the measures as ‘Operation Purifying Fire’ and argues they are necessary to dismantle a system of power built during Orbán’s sixteen-year tenure. Orbán’s Fidesz party has denounced the reform as the end of Hungarian democracy, with the former prime minister posting a black-and-white photograph of Magyar captioned ‘Democratic Hungary, 1990–2026’. Sulyok himself has said the question is whether ‘this force will sweep away the principles of the rule of law recognised and demanded internationally’.

The term limits will bar roughly half of the current Fidesz parliamentary faction and almost its entire leadership from standing in the next election, accelerating a generational rupture in the party. The age limit forces the immediate retirement of Constitutional Court president Péter Polt, a figure closely associated with the previous administration. In Brussels, the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee is examining a Human Rights Watch report that warns the government’s methods risk violating due process and the separation of powers. Hungarian civil society groups, including Amnesty International and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, have criticised the lack of legal safeguards in the presidential removal procedure and questioned the urgency of the term-limit provision.

Separately, Magyar confirmed this week that law enforcement authorities have opened an investigation into former foreign minister Péter Szijjártó over his contacts with Russia. During the election campaign, Magyar had accused Szijjártó of treason, citing media reports that Szijjártó maintained an informal channel with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and shared sensitive EU information. Szijjártó, who served as foreign minister from 2014 until the April election, resigned his parliamentary mandate on 15 July and announced he would take a senior position with Chinese electric-vehicle manufacturer BYD. The government has not disclosed details of the probe, citing state secrets.

President Sulyok’s decision on the amendment is expected by Saturday evening. If he signs, the constitutional changes will take immediate effect; if he refers the text to the Constitutional Court or refuses, the government has pledged to initiate impeachment. The European Commission, which had initially welcomed Magyar’s victory as a restoration of democratic norms, has not yet commented on the latest developments. The investigation into Szijjártó remains at an early stage, with the prime minister promising to release information ‘as soon as there is something to share’.