Sir, – Hungary's emergency law passed on Monday that enables the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, to rule by decree without time limits and which introduces jail terms for spreading disinformation about the coronavirus is a dangerous one ("Orbán wins power to rule by decree as Hungary fights Covid-19", News, March 30th).
It illustrates perhaps what the late Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman had in mind almost 10 years ago when in a Supreme Court judgement (Dellway Investments Ltd v Nama) he spoke of the importance of the law in times like these, “otherwise the cry of ‘emergency’ would be sufficient to set all rights aside at the whim of the Executive”.
He held that “the cry of ‘emergency’ is an intoxicating one, producing an exhilarating freedom from the need to consider the rights of others and productive of a desire to repeat it again and again”.
So, the question for Hungary and indeed the EU is, what’s next? – Yours, etc,
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JOHN McHUGH,
Glenageary,
Co Dublin.