by Leo Schlueter and Jorge Gomez • 3 min read
In two previous articles, First Liberty’s legal experts discussed how court-packing in Venezuela and Argentina led to authoritarian rule and the unfortunate loss of liberty for millions of people.
But if the lessons of these two countries weren’t enough to warn Americans about the dangers of a politicized judiciary, our team has uncovered another country where court-packing went wrong.
In 2011, the governing majority in Hungary’s national legislature packed the Hungarian Constitutional Court (HCC), increasing the size of the country’s highest court from eleven (11) members to fifteen (15). What’s more, they rigged the rules so that the party in power could ram through judges at will, without having to work out compromise with the opposition, minority party.
For people of faith concerned about rising threat of tyranny here in the U.S., the power-grab in Hungary is a cause for alarm because it shares shocking similarities to the radical Left’s plan to stage a Supreme Coup of the entire judiciary—a plot that will help them stack the deck and change the law to ensure their preferred political party can stay in power.
Below is a “Roadmap to Tyranny”—a quick overview of how proponents of court-packing took a page straight from Hungary’s authoritarian playbook and are putting it into practice here in America: