The Misuses of Manipulation: The failure of transitional justice in post-communist Hungary

Hungary, like most countries in the former Soviet bloc, made numerous attempts to carry out various types of transitional justice, but the process was ultimately unsuccessful. This article argues that transitional justice in Hungary has been used primarily for political manipulation and introduces the main types of such manipulation. A discussion of the two main components of Hungarian transitional justice, retroactive criminal legislation and screening based on secret police files, illustrates the failure of this process. The article concludes by offering some tentative explanations for this failure, finding it in the sharp ideological division within the political elite and in the population's indifference towards issues of transitional justice.