So you think the head of the constitutional court being an active politician with 12 years in parliament is a minor deviation from a platonic ideal? That is exactly the same as what the OP mentioned.

The German constitutional court is stacked with political appointees.

Sure, the situation in Hungary might be even worse. But western countries in the last decade have completely lost the moral high ground.

You can not imprison journalists like Julian Assange in solitary confinement in conditions that amount to torture, and then complain about lack of press freedom in other countries.

You can not pick your party colleague to lead the constitutional court and then complain about political court appointees in other countries.

This kind of selective outrage is just ridiculous.

That's one guy in a constitutional court of 16 members, and he wasn't a political appointment but was elected by the German parliament (something like a parliament, I'm no expert on the german system).

Assange was put in prison for being a bail jumper wanted on rape allegations. He's now in a perfectly ordinary British prison, going through the usual extradition process under politically independent judicial authority. There's no guarantee he will even be extradited.

Viktor Orban is now functionally a dictator ruling by emergency decree, and has effectively neutralised the constitutional court. They even retroactively invalidated all decisions made by the court before 2012 for goodness sake! There is no way shape or form in which this can be meaningfully equated to anything else in the history of the EU.

In Germany we have the biggest restrictions of fundamental rights since the existence of the federal republic of Germany.

We are all on indefinite house arrest. Millions of people are not allowed to work.

And the constitutional court does not even want to hear cases objecting to this. They will make a decision in 1 or 2 years when it has become irrelevant.

So it seems we don't have any fundamental rights at all. So spare me the outrage about Hungary.

Ok, I'll explain the difference. The lockdown in Germany overwhelmingly has the support of the population. If this was not the case, you would expect to see the politicians and parties that instigated the lockdowns severely punished for it in upcoming elections, but that won't happen. It's not a significant issue in the elections. Once the pandemic passes, the restrictions will be lifted. No permanent changes to the fundamental constitutions of Germany have been enacted using emergency laws justified under the pandemic, and if there were they'd still be subject to judicial review and accountability to the electorate. None of that has changed.

I will freely admit Orban does have a lot of support in Hungary, but he has used that to erase the country's judicial constitutional history, not just influence one judicial appointment nut utterly stack the entire judicial system, institute permanent constitutional changes under emergency powers, ruthlessly suppress independent journalism and undermine the entire electoral process in Hungary. He's not even coy about it, he just flat out says that's what he's doing.

There is no level of equivalence, which I'm sure you are completely aware of and fully understand, but this weaselly whataboutism is very tiring. If you actually support what he's doing, just be honest about it and say so, and tell us why.

> The lockdown in Germany overwhelmingly has the support of the population.

Fundamental rights are not supposed to be subject to majority approval. I might be in the minority, but I would still like to leave my house after 22:00 without risking arrest.

But this discussion is pointless.

If you seriously believe that e.g. what is being done to Julian Assange has anything to do with an independent judicial system, there is nothing to discuss.

This discussion is pointless because you keep talking at people and not to people, and talking over the argumentation to soapbox your own thoughts instead of engaging with the arguments. Then it isn't a discussion, it's you trying to find a good soapbox to do an exposé of your opinions, it's fucking tiring.

Ah, you are one of those fundamentalists... Yeah, there is also a pandemic going on, look at us here in Sweden how well it works to leave to personal responsibility and self risk assessment to follow health guidelines.