In a major legal shift following the end of Viktor Orbán’s 16-year consecutive rule in Hungary, national prosecutors have officially dismissed all criminal charges against Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony connected to his role in organizing an LGBTQ Pride march last year that proceeded despite a nationwide government ban.
The controversial ban on public events involving the LGBTQ community was introduced by Orbán’s administration, which had spent years advancing a conservative agenda targeting queer Hungarians. The 2025 Budapest Pride march went ahead regardless in June that year, with Karácsony openly attending and addressing the massive crowd even after police formally banned the gathering. Organizers confirmed at the time that a record-breaking 200,000 participants joined the march, marking one of the largest public demonstrations against Orbán’s policies in his final years in office. During his speech to attendees, Karácsony declared, “Neither freedom nor love can be banned in Budapest,” a line that quickly became a rallying cry for LGBTQ rights activists across Central Europe.
Hungarian law enforcement formally filed charges against Karácsony this past January, just months before a national election that would upend the country’s political landscape. But a key turning point came in April, when the European Court of Justice (ECJ)—the European Union’s highest judicial body—issued a landmark ruling that found Hungary’s restrictive anti-LGBTQ laws violated core EU regulations. The laws, which framed restrictions as a child protection measure, banned any so-called “promotion” of homosexuality or gender transition to people under 18. The ECJ ruled that the legislation ran counter to EU commitments to equality, non-discrimination, and protection of minority rights.
Nine days after that ECJ ruling, Hungarian voters headed to the polls and ended Orbán’s 16-year streak of continuous governance, bringing a new administration led by Prime Minister Péter Magyar into power. On Thursday, prosecutors formally announced the decision to drop all charges against Karácsony, explicitly tying the move to the ECJ’s landmark decision. “Considering the ruling by the European Court… the prosecutors dropped charges against the Budapest mayor for violating the law on freedom of assembly,” the prosecution service said in its official statement. As of Thursday afternoon, Karácsony has not released any public comment on the dismissal of charges.