Who cares about the rule of law? Citizens’ rule of law priorities in Hungary and the Czech Republic

Abstract

This article presents a representative empirical study where, instead of rating the importance of specific elements of the rule of law, respondents were asked to set up an order of priority between elements of democracy (majority rule) and the rule of law (counter-majoritarian institutions). The survey was conducted both in Hungary and the Czech Republic: these two countries represent the two extremes within the Visegrád Group regarding the rule-of-law-situation, Hungary being the worst and Czechia the best. In Hungary we can observe a deep tension in terms of priorities, and this basically translates into the government-opposition division: pro-government voters prioritize majoritarian arguments, while most opposition voters prefer counter-majoritarian institutions. In Czechia, on the contrary, counter-majoritarian and majoritarian features of the democratic system are seen in a more balanced way: even voters of populist and far-right parties highly appreciate the prevention of power abuse and a functioning constitutional court.