The free flow of information, together with public debates involving trusted experts, is crucial to managing the COVID-19 pandemic successfully. Hungary’s recent enabling act, which allows Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to rule by decree indefinitely, will have the opposite effect.
BUDAPEST – What critics justifiably call the “enabling act” that the Hungarian parliament passed on March 30 allows Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to rule by decree for an unlimited period, supposedly to help the government fight the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the new law endangers the lives of many Hungarians by empowering the government to limit drastically information about the management of the virus. The deadly consequences of such an approach are well known from Wuhan, China, where the authorities initially suppressed information about the outbreak of a novel coronavirus.
BUDAPEST – What critics justifiably call the “enabling act” that the Hungarian parliament passed on March 30 allows Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to rule by decree for an unlimited period, supposedly to help the government fight the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the new law endangers the lives of many Hungarians by empowering the government to limit drastically information about the management of the virus. The deadly consequences of such an approach are well known from Wuhan, China, where the authorities initially suppressed information about the outbreak of a novel coronavirus.