János Áder (born 9 May 1959) is a Hungarian politician and lawyer who served as President of Hungary from 2012 to 2022. A member of Fidesz, he took part in the Hungarian Round Table Talks during the end of communism in Hungary in 1989, before serving as a member of the National Assembly of Hungary from 1990 to 2009 and as its speaker from 1998 to 2002. He temporarily presided Fidesz between 2002 and 2003. He served as leader of the Fidesz parliamentary group between 2002 and 2006.
Áder was elected as an MEP during the 2009 European Parliament election. He was Deputy Chairman of the European Parliament Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety from January to May 2012, when he was elected president after his predecessor Pál Schmitt resigned due to a plagiarism controversy. Áder was the first president to serve two terms since Árpád Göncz, and was thus barred from re-election in 2022; he was succeeded by fellow Fidesz politician Katalin Novák.
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Early life and education
János Áder was born into a Roman Catholic family in the small town of Csorna in Győr-Moson-Sopron County, the son of shop assistant János Áder, Sr. (1932–1980) and accountant Terézia Szabó (born 1938), who worked for the local hospital and retired from there as deputy director for financial affairs. Áder grew up in his hometown and completed his elementary studies there. Beginning in 1978, he studied law for five years at the faculty of Law and Political Sciences at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. From 1986 to 1990, he was a research fellow at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' Sociological Research Institute.
Early political career
By the late 1980s, Áder had joined the nascent Fidesz, a liberal-democratic party at the time, serving as a party legal expert. He became a member of the Opposition Round Table talks that negotiated an end to single-party rule in Hungary in 1989.
Áder began his national political career during this transition to democracy, serving as the leader of Fidesz's national campaigns during the 1990 and 1994 parliamentary elections and as an MP from 1990 to 2009. During his twelve-year parliamentary tenure Áder served in a variety of leadership roles. From 9 September 1997 to 17 June 1998 he served as Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, and, during the first Orbán government (18 June 1998 – 15 May 2002), as Speaker of the National Assembly. With Fidesz in opposition after the 2002 election, Áder led the Fidesz caucus opposition.
MEP
Áder ran successfully as a candidate during the 2009 European-parliamentary election and consequently resigned from the Hungarian parliament. On 23 January 2012, he was elected a deputy chairman of the European Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. In 2011, following Fidesz's supermajority victory at the Hungarian polls one year earlier, Áder helped draft legislation modifying Hungary's judiciary and electoral laws; the former was challenged (but upheld) before the European Court of Justice.
Presidency (2012–2022)
First term
On 16 April 2012, Áder was selected by the majority of the parliament, and became the new President of Hungary after the resignation of Pál Schmitt. He was elected on 2 May to a five-year term by a vote of 262–40, and assumed office on 10 May 2012. He is consequently the first president to hold that office since the new Hungarian constitution took effect on 1 January 2012.
János Áder met Shimon Peres at a working dinner in Jerusalem on 15 July 2012, and invited the Israeli President for an official visit to Hungary. Áder told that their conversation had focused on deepening scientific cooperation between the two countries, in which Hungary could benefit from Israel's experience in areas such as farming and water management. On 16 July, he told a commemoration of Raoul Wallenberg in the Knesset, that The Holocaust is "the tragedy of mankind without parallel". He said the rise of anti-Semitism in several countries in Europe had been discussed, he said, "adding that steps against such phenomena must be taken together". Later, The Simon Wiesenthal Centre asked Áder in an open letter sent to MTI to help bring alleged Nazi war criminal László Csizsik-Csatáry to justice "as quickly as possible".
Áder said Hungary's new constitution guarantees constitutional rights and catered for fourth generation human rights in his address of the 67th session of the UN General Assembly in New York City on 25 September 2012. These include Article P, which states that "natural resources, especially the farmland, forests and the drinking water supplies, the biodiversity – in particular native plant and animal species – and the cultural assets shall form part of the nation's common heritage; the State and every person shall be obliged to protect, sustain and preserve them for future generations". He mentioned especially the water supply, and how short-sighted and irrational it was the way "we pollute our waters". Áder also told Hungary has taken active part in the work of the UN's Friends of Water working group. Hungary hosted a conference on water and sanitation in Budapest in 2013.
He sent the election procedures bill to the Constitutional Court for preliminary legal review on 6 December 2012. He stressed in a statement that the bill passed by Parliament on 26 November guarantees free and democratic elections. On 3 January 2013, the Court ruled that the law curtailed voting rights to an unjustifiable degree, due to the fact that the requirement for voters to register prior to going to the polls applies to every voter. As a result, Antal Rogán announced the government will not introduce voter pre-registration in the 2014 parliamentary election.
Second term
Áder's rejection of electoral registration and reclassification of MNB public funds were serious political setbacks for Viktor Orbán, who, as a result, reportedly considered replacing Áder with a less independent candidate in the 2017 presidential election. In April 2016, for example, pro-government news portal Origo claimed that Áder's imminent dismissal was "almost certain." Then, in May 2016, MP György Rubovszky was recorded as saying, during a parliamentary committee session, that "Viktor [Orbán] would not allow it [Áder's reelection]." On 8 December 2016, opposition media outlet ATV claimed that Orbán was grooming Minister of Human Resources Zoltán Balog to succeed Áder. ATV added that Áder's neutrality during the October 2016 migrant quota referendum campaign had harmed the "relationship of trust" between him and Orbán.
In contrast to ATV, Origo reported three days later that Áder would remain president. Origo added that "only" Áder would make the decision about his candidacy for reelection, but had asked for time to consider his candidacy. On 21 December, it was reported that Orbán had requested the party leadership to select Áder as the governing coalition's nominee for president. Parliamentary group leader Lajos Kósa officially announced Áder's nomination on the same day. On 29 December, Áder accepted the nomination, calling his presidential role a "constitutional service". An Index analysis argued that the government had not been able to find a suitable successor for Balog's ministry and that Áder had not actually caused any "big trouble" during his first term, since the president had supported the government's "most important" measures. Áder's re-election thus "did not represent a significant political risk" to Orbán.
Áder was re-elected for a second five-year term by the Hungarian parliament by a vote of 131–39 on 13 March 2017. His opponent was legal scholar László Majtényi, an independent candidate supported by a coalition of left-wing opposition parties. Áder thus became the second two-term post-communist head of state of Hungary (after Árpád Göncz, who served as President from 1990 to 2000). Áder took his presidential oath of office on 8 May 2017.
During the same period, Áder entered the national and international media spotlight for refusing to submit a government-sponsored revision to Act CCIV of 2011 on National Higher Education for constitutional review. The amendment, known domestically as lex CEU, impacted foreign-operating universities, including the Central European University (CEU). Áder signed the educational amendment into law on 10 April despite protest and criticism from both domestic and international activists, scholars, and academic institutions, claiming the amendment did not seem to conflict with the constitution or international treaties. Áder's decision sparked a protest in front of the Sándor Palace, while Wikipedia pages about Áder in several languages were vandalized.
Family
Since 1984, Áder has been married to Anita Herczegh, who works as a judge. They have three daughters, Orsolya, Borbála, Júlia and a son, András.
János Áder has a sister, Annamária (born 1960), a biology and geography high school teacher, who married footballer and manager Gábor Pölöskei. She was appointed head of the Klebelsberg Institution Maintenance Centre (KLIK) on 1 March 2016.
He is a Roman Catholic.
Áder's father-in-law, Géza Herczegh, was a judge of the International Court of Justice at The Hague from 1993 to 2003.
Honours and awards
Domestic
Hungarian Order of Saint Stephen
Grand Cross with Chain of the Hungarian Order of Merit
Foreign
Two Sicilian Royal Family: Knight Grand Cross of the Two Sicilian Royal Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George, Special Class
Poland: Grand Cross of the Order of the White Eagle
Ukraine: Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, 1st class