Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ law breaches EU rules as court ruling hailed as ‘historic’

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The European Court of Justice rules that the rights of transgender and non-heterosexual individuals in Hungary have been infringed upon

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Agence France-PressePublished: 5:58pm, 21 Apr 2026EU’s top court ruled on Tuesday 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.Advertisement

It outraged activists and leaders across the EU who criticised it for stigmatising 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”.

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The court found for the first time that Article 2 of the Treaty of the European Union (TEU) was infringed, including the rights of transgender and non-heterosexual individuals, “as well as the values of respect for human dignity, equality and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities”.

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