Admitting that its previous article contained misconceptions about the President of the NOJ, the Hungarian newspaper HVG has issued a rectification.

According to the rectification published on the online portal of HVG: ‘We spread the false allegation that dr. Tünde Handó, President of the National Office for the Judiciary (NOJ) refused to talk to the investigating international organization. We spread the false allegation that dr. Tünde Handó, President of the NOJ threatened dr. Sándor Szabó, Secretary General of the Hungarian Association of Judges with initiating disciplinary procedure to make him resign from his place in the National Judicial Council. In contrary, the reality is that dr. Tünde Handó, President of the NOJ has met and spoken to the representatives of the International Association of Judges, furthermore she never threatened dr. Sándor Szabó, Secretary General of the Hungarian Association of Judges by initiating disciplinary procedure to make him resign from his position in the National Judicial Council.’

Since hvg.hu admitted before the judgement on its merits that it made false allegations, the lawsuit ended on 17 July 2019 with the agreement of the parties.

As Ferenc Deák, Wit of the Nation said: ‘If I had my way, the statue of the press had only one paragraph: You shall not lie.”