"A number of recent constitutional amendments by Hungary's Parliament have received well-deserved criticism from foreign governments and the European Union. Particularly troubling is the amendment granting practically unlimited power to Parliament to overturn decisions of the constitutional court, including retroactively.
With these changes in hand, and commanding a disciplined two-thirds majority in Parliament, Prime Minister Viktor Orban is now capable of exercising constitutional mob rule. By the definition attributed to Thomas Jefferson, this is government by which a majority may take away the rights of the rest of the population.
These developments would be worrisome enough on their own. But the international community has paid far less attention to the creeping centralization of economic policy under Mr. Orban. The recent appointment of Gyorgy Matolcsy as central bank governor is the culmination of Mr. Orban's relentless campaign to extinguish checks and balances—a campaign that began nearly three years ago with the passage of an amendment curtailing the constitutional court's jurisdiction over cases involving budgetary and tax measures. (...)