“There shall be no mercy for paedophiles,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Thursday, adding that he had filed a constitutional amendment to prevent a pardon from being granted to perpetrators of crimes committed against minors.
Orbán said on Facebook that he had submitted the amendment proposal on behalf of the government, adding that it was his personal belief that there must be no mercy for paedophiles.
He said a debate on the powers of the presidential pardon had arisen, adding that “what’s needed now is not to be lawyerly but to establish clarity with an unequivocal decision”.
He said he had five children and six grandchildren, adding that if anybody touched them, his first thought would be that “they must be cut in half, they must be cut into pieces”.
DK writes to Pope over presidential pardon of former deputy head of orphanage
The opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) has written a letter to Pope Francis regarding President Katalin Novak’s pardon to a former deputy head of a children’s home in Bicske, near Budapest.
Ahead of the Pope’s visit last April, Novak granted presidential pardon to, among others, the former deputy director of a children’s home in Bicske convicted of being an accomplice in paedophile crimes.
DK group leader Olga Kalman told an online press conference on Thursday that the letter was delivered to Michael W Banach, the apostolic nuncio to Hungary.
Kalman said DK hoped the Pope would “find a way to express our common belief that citing a servant of Jesus cannot pave the way for cooperation with sin and sinners”.
She said DK strove to protect children and would not allow “paedophile-stroking Katalin Novak and the Orban government to set free further paedophile criminals”.
