HUNGARIANS have long been known for their inventiveness. The definition of a Magyar, the old joke goes, is someone who enters a revolving door behind you but comes out in front. The government now seems to be applying a similar ingenuity to jurisprudence.Government officials and MPs from the ruling right-wing Fidesz party are calling for legal action against three former Socialist prime ministers, Péter Medgyessy, Ferenc Gyurcsány and Gordon Bajnai, for allowing the state debt to spiral from 53% of GDP in 2002 to 80% in 2010.

A parliamentary committee concluded that “a political crime against Hungary” had been committed, said Péter Szijjártó, spokesman for Viktor Orbán, the prime minister (pictured). Should any legal investigation find that there is a case to answer, the prosecutor's office could bring criminal charges.



The announcement caused uproar in parliament. Opposition MPs condemned the move as “nonsense” and “political persecution”. But Hungary is not the only European country to consider making its former leaders pay for their mistakes. Geir Haarde, a former prime minister of Iceland, is on trial before a special court, accused of negligence contributing to the 2008 banking crash. He denies the charges.



Yulia Tymoshenko, a former Ukrainian prime minister, is also on trial, accused of signing a dodgy gas deal with Russia during her time in office that caused damages worth $190m. She calls the trial a farce. Many Greeks argue that the leaders who led their country into the economic abyss should be called to account. As a proportion of national output, Greece owes roughly twice as much as Hungary.



Most Hungarian commentators see Mr Gyurcsány as Fidesz's real target. In 2006 he admitted, in private, that his government had repeatedly lied to the country about the real state of the economy. His speech—which was recorded and leaked, sparking days of rioting—would doubtless be used by prosecutors.

Mr Gyurcsány reacted angrily to the accusation, saying Fidesz was launching a political attack. “This criminalisation action, making it retrospective, raises many questions. I cannot see how it is lawful. This is part of the complicated political game led by Fidesz [to discredit me],” he told the Financial Times.



Talk of show trials is nonsense, says Zoltan Kovacs, the government communications minister. “These are very serious problems. The country was ruined between 2002 and 2010. These economic decisions were made here by people who knew the numbers. Any legal process that follows from this will be clear and transparent.”



Tibor Navracsics, the deputy prime minister and justice minister, told Hír TV, a television station sympathetic to the government, that there was no need for new legislation as the criminal code already contains provisions covering the reckless increase of public debt.



Disquiet over the government's move is not confined to the liberal-left. Writing in Mandiner.hu, an independent-minded conservative blog, Ákos Balogh, the editor-in-chief, argues [link in Hungarian] that responsibility for the state debt is a political rather than legal issue.



None of this is likely to calm the growing concern in western capitals about the direction of Hungary's democracy. The alarm bells seem to be ringing loudest in the United States. Hillary Clinton, on a recent visit to Budapest, called for a “real commitment to the independence of the judiciary, a free press and government transparency”.

Thomas Melia, a senior official in the state department, reinforced those concerns when he told a committee of the House of Representatives that Fidesz should slow down the “pace of change”. (His comments did not go down well in some quarters.)



Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis, America's woman in Budapest, echoed this call yesterday in an op-ed article for Magyar Nemzet, the main conservative daily. (The article does not seem to be available at the paper's website but can be read on the embassy's website.)



Like Mrs Clinton, Mrs Kounalakis does not question Hungary's basic democratic credentials. But she does want the government to move more slowly (a call repeated not just by opposition MPs but even by László Kövér, a Fidesz MP and speaker of parliament).

Hungary must, Mrs Kounalakis says, take the “time and effort to get it right” while drafting the numerous so-called "cardinal" laws needed for the new constitution. “The most important of these will pertain to an independent media and judiciary, and free and fair elections. The system cannot be permanently tilted to favour one party or another. Everyone must have the opportunity to debate openly, be judged fairly, and compete freely.”



Including, presumably, former Socialist prime ministers.