Hungarians march in downtown Budapest to protest against a law banning LGBTQ+ Pride events and the populist government's restriction on assembly rights, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. DENES ERDOS / AP
The European Union's top court ruled Tuesday, April 21 that anti-LGBTQ+ legislation Hungary enacted in 2021 breached the bloc's rules, including an article which sets out the fundamental values on which the EU is founded.
The European Commission, 16 of 27 member states and the European Parliament took Hungary to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over the law, in what has been billed as the largest human rights case in the bloc's history.
Originally aimed at toughening punishments for child abuse, the law was amended by nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban's ruling coalition to ban the "promotion of homosexuality" to under-18s.
It outraged activists and leaders across the EU who criticized it for stigmatizing LGBTQ+ people and equating same-sex relations to paedophilia. The ECJ found that Hungary has acted in breach of EU law "on a number of separate levels."
