There is a moderate to high risk of corruption in Hungary’s judiciary. Bribes or irregular payments in return for favorable judgments sometimes occur (GCR 2015-2016). Public corruption polls reveal that a third of Hungarians perceive corruption and abuse of power as being widespread in Hungary’s judicial system, but almost none report paying bribes to judges (GCB 2013, Eurobarometer 2014). The current government led by Viktor Orbán has significantly weakened the rule of law by weakening the judiciary, including the Constitutional Court (BTI 2016). The politically influenced appointment of new Constitutional Court judges has raised concerns (FitW 2017). Trust in the independence of the judiciary among businesses has sharply declined in recent years (GCR 2017-2018). About one in five companies considers the degree to which the judiciary is independent to be fairly low or very low (JS 2017).

Companies also have low confidence in the efficiency of the legal framework pertaining to the settling of disputes and challenging of regulations (GCR 2017-2018). Businesses have expressed their frustrations with lengthy procedures in civil courts (ICS 2017). The introduction of a new Civil Procedure Code which is due to enter into force in January 2018 is expected to improve efficiency (ICS 2017). Companies increasingly prefer mediation as a tool to settle commercial disputes in order to avoid lengthy court procedures (ICS 2017). Enforcing a contract in Hungary requires more time than in other OECD high-income countries, but the costs involved are significantly lower (DB 2017). Hungary has signed the New York Convention of 1958 and is party to the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).