Case C-769/22 Commission v Hungary (the anti-LGBTI law and values of the European Union)

In June 2021, the Hungarian Parliament adopted a new law setting out a number of prohibitions on sharing information about homosexuality and trans-sexuality with minors. This ‘anti-LGBTI law’ provoked the Commission to launch an Article 258 TFEU infringement procedure (Case 769/22 Commission v Hungary). Member states - Ireland, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg - joined the case as third parties and in a very rare turn of events, the European Parliament’s committee on legal affairs also voted in favour of the EP joining the EU Commission’s case.

In addition to asking the CJEU to declare that Hungary has infringed EU law (Art 56 TFEU and the Charter) the Commission requested the Court to find an infringement of Article 2 TEU, the Treaty provision which sets out the foundational values of the Union. As put by AG Ćapeta, this request raises novel and important questions in EU law – is Art 2 TEU justiciable in its own right, and in infringement proceedings? If yes, what does infringement of a value look like – and which of the ones in Article 2 TEU are justiciable? What are the consequences of this for EU law if this idea is affirmed or rejected? Such is the relevance of these questions for EU law that the Court will sit in a plenary formation to decide it. 

The CJEU decision was released on April 21st - the Court found that Hungary had failed to fulfil its obligations on all grounds raised, including Article 2 TEU. Please join us to discuss and debate these issues at the IECL Webinar on May 5th 2026 with leading scholars in EU and Equality law including:

Prof. Tamara Ćapeta (Advocate General, CJEU)

Tamara Ćapeta has served as Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Union since October 2021. She was previously a Professor of EU Law at the University of Zagreb, where she co-founded the Department of European Public Law and led several major academic initiatives. Her work focuses on judicial legitimacy and the constitutional dimensions of EU law.

Dr Lilla Farkas

Lilla Farkas is an assistant professor at ELTE, Institute of Political and International Studies. Lilla was a member of the Budapest Bar Association between 1998 and 2022, litigating cases for various human rights organisations. She has served as president of the Hungarian Equal Treatment Authority’s Advisory Board (2005-2011) and as race (Roma) ground coordinator of the European network of legal experts on gender equality and non-discrimination (since 2005). She holds an LLM from King’s College, London and a PhD from the European University Institute, where she defended a thesis on “Mobilising for racial equality in the EU: Roma rights and transnational justice” (2020). Lilla spent the 2018/19 academic year at the UCLA as a Fulbright scholar studying the enforcement of anti-discrimination law in the US and the EU. Her research interests include anti-discrimination law, racial equality, Roma rights, legal mobilisation and housing.

Prof Rob Wintemute

Robert Wintemute is a Professor of Human Rights Law. He joined The Dickson Poon School of Law in 1991 after practising as an Associate in the Bankruptcy Department at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP in New York, 1982-87. In 1978, Professor Wintemute completed his BA in Economics at the University of Alberta (which included a year at Université Laval). In 1982, he earned his LLB (common law) and BCL (Québec civil law) in the National Programme at McGill University. In 1993, he was awarded his DPhil by the University of Oxford.

Prof Miguel Poiares Maduro

Dean and VdA Chair in Digital Governance holder at Católica Global School of Law. Miguel Poiares Maduro is Doctor of Laws by the European University Institute (Florence), first winner of the Rowe and Maw Prize and winner of the Prize Obiettivo Europa, Miguel Poiares Maduro was honoured by the President of the Portuguese Republic with the Order of Sant'Iago da Espada for literary, scientific and artistic merit and was awarded the Gulbenkian Science Prize in 2010.