The article was originally published in Hungarian on June 27th 2025.  

The Budapest city council is organising Pride this year as a municipal event under the name Budapest Pride, so that the Orbán government’s hardened assembly law does not apply to the parade. But the police say permission is still needed. The legal battle is ongoing, we’ll help you sort it out.

Ever since the government tried to make it impossible to hold Budapest Pride by amending the law on assembly in mid-March, the legal situation around the event has been confusing. In this article, we explain the disagreements between the Municipality of Budapest, the government and the authorities, why the police banned another rainbow parade unrelated to the 28 June event in the capital, and how that case reached the Supreme Court.

How did the government try to ban Pride?

On 18 March, the Hungarian Parliament voted in favour of the so-called Pride law, which bans any assembly that violates the prohibitions laid down in the Child Protection Act. According to the justification, “this will ensure that only assemblies which respect the right of children to proper physical, mental and moral development can be held in Hungary.” Anyone who organises or participates in an assembly deemed to be “detrimental to children” commits an offence and can be fined. The authorities can also use facial image recognition to identify offenders. To this end, the government has also amended the Constitution (for the fifteenth time).

Several ministers and the Prime Minister himself have expressed the legislative and governmental will to prevent Pride in public places in Hungary.

We have already written about other countries where Pride cannot be held: in 2023, only one country in Europe did not hold a Pride parade. If the Hungarian authorities enforce the law, meaning that there will be no public Pride event in Hungary, the country will join Belarus in this respect.

So will there be Pride or not?

“On 28 June, the Municipality of Budapest, in partnership with the Rainbow Mission Foundation, will organise the Budapest Pride event”

– Budapest mayor Gergely Karácsony announced on 16 June. The mayor also said that “Budapest is reviving the tradition of celebrating the freedom of the city in June each year, also to commemorate the withdrawal of Soviet troops. This year’s Budapest Freedom Day is called Budapest Pride.” He added: “Budapest Pride is a municipal event in accordance with the legislation in force, which stands for freedom and equality of rights and does not require any official authorisation.

So, unlike in previous years, Budapest Pride will be a municipal event, but it will still be a Pride event and march.

In response to our question about the legal basis for their event on 28 June, the Municipality of Budapest said, “On 8 May 2001, the Parliament adopted Act XVII of 2001 on the significance of the reclamation of the country’s freedom and the Day of Hungarian Freedom, which declared 19 June as National Day of Remembrance and the last Saturday of June as the Day of Hungarian Freedom.”

With this event, the capital is reviving the old celebration of freedom called Budapest Búcsú.

“This year’s celebration of freedom has been named Budapest Pride (Budapest Büszkeség in Hungarian) by decision of the Mayor of Budapest.”

As they wrote: The municipal event is not subject to the law on assembly, which means that no permission is required from the police or any other authority to hold a municipal event.

The Municipality of Budapest also referred to a 2009 opinion by the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights in its reply to Lakmusz. The document states:

“It is therefore conceptually impossible to organise an event covered by the right of assembly on behalf of the state or municipality. This means that, in the absence of “the exercise of the right of assembly of another”, they cannot be considered as a violation of the “right of association, freedom of assembly and the right to participate in electoral assemblies”.

How did the police respond?

The police disagree with the capital’s reasoning. Two days after the announcement of the Mayor, on 18 June, the Budapest Police Headquarters (BRFK) issued a statement.

It noted that “the content of the notification falls within the scope of Act LV of 2018 on the Right of Assembly, and [the police] will therefore judge it accordingly.”

A day later, the decision banning the assembly was published by BRFK. The police attached a photo gallery to the decision.

Among the pictures attached were shots of previous Pride marches, but also of Kristóf Steiner (a celebrity who came out publicly) and his partner. Steiner said that the pictures were not taken at the parade, but at the Rainbow Party in Budapest Park after Budapest Pride, where under-18s were not allowed to enter.

The mayor’s view

Gergely Karácsony said that the police had issued a ban on a non-existent march: because the Municipality of Budapest did not make a notification under the Assembly Act, the prohibition order is irrelevant.

The controversy has not died down since then: the Mayor of Budapest continues to say that there is no law under which the marchers can be punished, while the police, in a statement on 26 June, said that they interpreted Saturday’s event as falling under the assembly law and considered it a banned assembly, and would investigate the criminal liability of the organisers.

The same was claimed by Justice Minister Bence Tuzson, who said that Budapest Pride is banned, that its organisation is a criminal offence and that participation is a misdemeanour. The minister has written to several embassies in Budapest about this. According to Karácsony, if the Justice Minister says such things, he is “not aware of the legislation in force.”

NGO marches and the Supreme Court

Moreover, Tuzson claimed that Pride was banned because the Curia (the Supreme Court of Hungary) had also banned the event. However, the Curia decision was made in relation to another LGBTQI event, not the one organized by the Budapest city council.

On 1 June 2025, five NGOs, Amnesty International Hungary, the Háttér Society, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, the Rainbow Mission Foundation, and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union planned peaceful demonstration on Andrássy Avenue. Among other things, this event would have raised awareness of the importance of taking action against transphobia and homophobia. However, the police banned the event, citing amendments to the law on assembly and the Fundamental Law.

The organisations appealed against the police ban, which resulted in the Curia annulling the police ban and the police finally taking note of the event. However, the organisers postponed the march until 28 June due to protracted legal appeals. The police interpreted the change of date as a new notification and, again, banned the event.

From there, the story got even more complicated:

• On 11 June, the Curia annulled the police’s decision to ban the march, saying that the police had acted unlawfully, and ordered a new procedure.
• On 13 June, the police once again banned the march announced by the NGOs.
• Finally, on 20 June, the Curia also ruled that the NGOs could not hold their event on 28 June.
• Subsequently, the NGOs announced another event, this time focused on the violation of the right of assembly, also for 28 June, which was again banned by the police. On 27 June the Curia again annulled this new prohibition order and ordered the police to take new proceedings.

However, it is important to stress that the fight between the NGOs, the police and the Curia have nothing to do with the event announced by Gergely Karácsony.

The statement by Justice Minister Bence Tuzson that the march by Karácsony was also banned by the Curia is simply not true.

What can we expect on Saturday?

The 28 June march will therefore be held by the Municipality of Budapest. Meanwhile, the far-right Our Homeland party has announced demonstrations on all Budapest bridges for the duration of Budapest Pride; and the Hatvannégy Vármegye Youth Movement has booked several routes, including roads where it will pass along the route of the Pride.

In response to a question from Lakmusz, the Budapest Municipality wrote that according to the Municipal Decree 3/2013 on the use of public spaces owned by the Municipality of Budapest, no public space use consent is required for the use of public spaces by the Municipality of Budapest.

They added:

“The Chief of Police of Budapest has already been informed of the holding of the municipal event by the Mayor of Budapest. The police have a constitutional duty to ensure public order.”

On 26 June, the police said that “the police are not aware of the security measures related to the march and have not consulted the authorities.” They added that “maintaining security at the event is the responsibility of the organisers. The police will fully carry out their duties in relation to the march, as set out in the Police Act.”

In a reply to Lakmusz, the BRFK made similar comments:

“On 28 June 2025, the police will continue to act in accordance with the legislation in force, ensure public order and public safety in Budapest, and will take the necessary measures to this end.”

In his usual public radio interview on Friday 27 June, Viktor Orbán sided with the police, saying that the event requires a notification (in accordance with the law on assembly) and a police permit. He advised everyone to obey the rules, and then noted that the police could disperse the marchers, they have the right to do so, but “Hungary belongs to the civilised world, we don’t hurt each other, the legal consequence should not reach the level of physical abuse.”