The Attorney General of Hungary, Gábor Bálint Nagy, submitted his resignation this Wednesday, a decision that he frames in the need to protect the Prosecutor's Office from party struggles, after the new Prime Minister, Peter Magyar, set his departure as a priority to leave behind the stage of Viktor Orbán.
"The protection of the independence and authority of the judiciary, including the Prosecutor's Office, is one of the pillars of a democratic institutional system. The Prosecutor's Office cannot become an instrument of the struggles of political actors nor a stage for everyday political interests or power games," Nagy stated in a statement in which he formalizes his departure, after registering his resignation as Vice President of the Hungarian Parliament dated August 25, the day his term expired.
The Attorney General denounces that the institution has been "the object of a series of attacks against me," which, in his opinion, "far exceed the limits of acceptable public and professional debate."
"The functioning and independence of the Public Ministry must not be harmed under any circumstances by the immoral struggles and politically motivated actions that have erupted around the position. I no longer wish to be part of a conflict that has arisen around me, based on falsehoods and for political purposes, becoming a means to further erode institutional trust," he added.
Nagy has claimed his professional trajectory and his actions at the head of the Public Ministry. "Neither I nor my family members have had ties to political parties, and I have held the position of Attorney General for just over a year," he emphasized.
He also warned of a growing phenomenon in the judicial sphere. "It is becoming increasingly common for actors in criminal proceedings and lawyers acting as legal representatives to use their own cases to launch political attacks against certain actors in the judicial system, including the Prosecutor's Office," he indicated, insisting that these behaviors "endanger the authority of the Prosecutor's Office" and undermine its independence.
In his message to the Hungarian political class, Nagy warns of the "extremely negative message" that public figures calling for the replacement of the attorney general "because the ongoing criminal proceedings are not developing as they expected" entails. "All of this means that the acting attorney general fears that if his management does not meet the expectations of politicians, he will face his dismissal," he alerted, framing his resignation as a gesture to "safeguard the interests of the Prosecutor's Office."
Reaction of Peter Magyar and institutional pulse
Nagy's departure was immediately celebrated by the prime minister, who highlighted that "the country is freeing itself from another puppet of Orbán" and accused the attorney general of having "been obstructing the political transformation."
After his wide electoral victory in April, Magyar defended that the high officials appointed under Orbán's mandate should abandon their responsibilities to facilitate institutional renewal.
With this objective, he set a deadline until May 31 for President Tamas Sulyok and heads of key agencies, including the Prosecutor's Office, to submit their resignations. In addition, the head of the Government pushed for an expedited reform of the Constitution, finally approved in July, in order to accelerate the departure of these high officials and bolster the new political stage.