FORBES
Hungarian President Katalin Novák announced Saturday she would resign, admitting she “made a mistake” by issuing a pardon last year for a man convicted in a child sex abuse case, a decision that sparked calls for her ouster after it was recently made public.
KEY FACTS
Novák announced her decision on Hungarian television, saying she “made a mistake” by issuing the pardon, which “caused bewilderment and unrest for many people.”
The pardon was issued because Novák believed the convicted man “did not abuse the vulnerability of the children entrusted to him,” though she noted the decision involved “the lack of justification” that raised “doubts about zero tolerance for pedophilia.”
Her resignation follows a string of protests outside Novák’s presidential office in Budapest over the last week, after Hungarian outlets revealed Novák pardoned the man, the former deputy director of a state-run children’s home who was sentenced to over three years in prison in 2018 for hiding a sex abuse scandal under the home’s former director.
Judit Varga, Hungary’s former justice minister who endorsed Novák’s pardon, saidshe would also resign as a member of the Hungarian parliament and “retire from public life…
