The Hungarian Parliament approves the bill on the country's withdrawal from the International Criminal Court in the final vote

BUDAPEST, 20 May. Hungary's parliament has approved in a final vote a bill on the country's withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to a live broadcast on the parliament's website. More than two-thirds of lawmakers voted in favour of the bill. However, this final vote was preceded by intense debates in parliament in late April. At that time, all legislators from the ruling Fidesz and the Hungarian Civic Union and their supporters from the Christian Democratic People's Party supported the document, while the opposition Liberal Democratic parties opposed it.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, in presenting the bill to Parliament, said that the International Criminal Court had become highly politicised in recent years and that various countries were using it to achieve their own goals in international conflicts. "Hungary believes that politics and geopolitics have no place in international legal organisations," the top diplomat said.

At the beginning of April, the Hungarian government announced its decision to withdraw from the ICC, timed to coincide with the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Budapest. In November 2023, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Palestinian territories. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán condemned the decision, calling it "outrageous and shameful".

TASS/gnews.cz