ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses the systemic changes that have affected the first target of the Law and Justice government the Constitutional Tribunal. One of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's speeches, in which illiberal democracy is presented as a political project that constitutes the optimal solution for Hungarian society, is considered to have been the beginning of the approach. In turn, illiberal constitutionalism is defined as ‘capturing the constitution and constitutionalism with legal means such as formal and informal constitutional change and packing and paralyzing the constitutional court. Bruce Ackerman’s theory of constitutional moment was originally formulated in relation to the US political system and takes into account its specificity. The rulings of the Constitutional Tribunal from 2019-2020 presented in the chapter prove that there has already been an 'illiberal turn' in the Constitutional Tribunal itself. The changes that have occurred in Poland since 2015 should really be conceptualised as an illiberal, counter-constitutional revolution.
