Lawyers could face trial as defendants over Orbán-era cases
Former Justice Minister Péter Bárándy believes that lawyers facilitating dubious transactions under the Orbán system could face criminal proceedings. Formally lawful contracts do not necessarily provide protection if criminal activity underlies them.
Bárándy: legal appearance does not exempt from criminal liability
Not only politicians, but also lawyers and law firms involved in the technical execution of dubious transactions should face investigation for their involvement in recent cases, according to former Justice Minister Péter Bárándy. According to klubradio.hu, Bárándy explained in detail on the programme Megbeszéljük: if criminal proceedings function properly, contracts that create an appearance of lawfulness do not necessarily provide protection for those concealing a shared intent directed at criminal activity.
According to Bárándy, it has long been known through informal networks within legal circles which firms and lawyers stood ready to execute dubious transactions. He identified two characteristic types of tasks: on the one hand, drafting contracts that allowed funds to be redistributed to state or government-aligned actors, and on the other, drafting legislation and government decrees that raised constitutional or EU legal concerns. He regards the latter as particularly serious, since rules governing the legal profession prohibit facilitating circumvention of legislation.
Sham contracts and disproportionately high legal fees
He separately addressed the problem of sham contracts. In these contractual arrangements, the transaction does not reflect the actual intentions of the parties but conceals a transaction that one party wishes to hide. He gave the example of a state organisation paying strikingly high legal fees for ostensible work, whilst the real purpose was transferring money in another direction. "A criminal court is not likely to be much concerned whether such a contract appears lawful at first glance," said Bárándy. If the underlying facts reveal shared intent directed at committing an offence, the appearance of lawfulness does not change the criminal law classification of the act.
In criminal proceedings, therefore, one must not examine the contract text in isolation but rather the parties' actual, shared intent. Bárándy illustrated this with a telling analogy: if an elderly or vulnerable person is persuaded to sign a property sale contract through deception or coercion, the document may appear lawful and might even be registered in the property register – but after the underlying circumstances are exposed it may fall under an entirely different criminal law assessment. In his view, the same logic applies to larger constructions involving state or economic actors.
When does a high fee justify official investigation?
The programme also raised the question of whether an exceptionally high legal fee alone provides sufficient grounds for initiating an official investigation. Bárándy emphasised that fee agreements are subject to free negotiation, so a high sum is not unlawful in itself. However, if the payment is visibly not backed by proportionate legal work, the question arises as to what the payment's actual purpose was. He gave the example that if a party pays tens or even hundreds of millions of forints for half an hour of consultation, that could justify investigation into whether it was genuinely legal work – and the underlying purpose could even be linked to corruption.
"One should expect this"
Over the past 16 years, the practice increasingly became attempting to render everything lawful on paper through legal constructions – it was said on the programme. Bárándy responded to this unequivocally: "That is quite certain." However, he added that criminal courts will not examine the appearance of lawfulness but rather what actually happened.
When asked whether in the coming one or two years lawyers might be expected to appear in court not as defenders but as defendants, the former justice minister gave a firm answer: "I believe one should expect this." He added that it personally troubles him that within the legal profession there could have been those who took part in such cases, but he believes these cases may indeed come to light.
Source: Google News HU — Crime (hu)