The European Court of Justice ruled Tuesday that Hungary’s 2021 Child Protection Law — which banned the depiction or promotion of homosexuality and gender reassignment in content accessible to minors — violates EU law and breaches the fundamental values set out in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
It marks the first time the court has found an EU member state in breach of the Charter’s core values. All 27 judges participated in the ruling. The court ordered Hungary to repeal the law immediately, finding that it violates protections against discrimination based on sex and sexual orientation, the right to private and family life, and freedom of expression and information. The court also found the law interferes with EU rules governing the free provision of services.
The ruling comes just nine days after Hungary’s parliamentary elections, in which opposition leader Péter Magyar and his Tisza Party defeated Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz government after 16 years in power. Hungary had argued the law was necessary to protect children and preserve national identity. The outgoing Orbán government had not formally responded to the ruling at time of publication.
The timing of this ruling — handed down days after Orbán’s electoral defeat — is difficult to ignore. Hungary enacted this law through democratic means, with the backing of its own citizens in a referendum. The notion that protecting children from age-inappropriate sexual content constitutes a breach of “core EU values” reveals exactly what those values have become. The EU is not a neutral arbiter of rights — it is an ideological actor, and this ruling makes that plain. Hungary spent 16 years defending the right of its people to govern themselves. That fight is not over simply because a court in Luxembourg says so.