Hungary Post-2010 has been ruled by Viktor Orbán and his right-wing Fidesz party and is generally regarded as a typical case of populist governance. Reforming the Penal Code was one of the first major policy changes initiated by Fidesz shortly after winning the 2010 elections. It introduced the ‘three-strikes’ principle into Hungarian penal policy which is considered a prime example of penal populism. It could be inferred that in the past decade Hungarian penal policy has been dominated by penal populism and punitive measures. This paper argues that reality is more nuanced and presents the concepts of penal populism and populist policy making, with a special focus on the Hungarian context. The article provides an overview of the most important penal policy measures in the past two decades and examines whether and how increased strictness of legislative acts influenced the sentencing practice. The paper highlights the related results of an empirical survey on public opinions about criminal law and ends with a case study exploration of the intersections of lowering the age limit of criminal responsibility and penal populism.

2010年后的匈牙利由维克托·欧尔班及其右翼青民盟执政，被普遍认为是民粹主义治理的典型案例。改革刑法是青民盟在赢得 2010 年选举后不久发起的首批重大政策变革之一。它将“三击”原则引入匈牙利的刑罚政策，这被认为是刑罚民粹主义的一个典型例子。可以推断，在过去十年中，匈牙利的刑罚政策一直以刑罚民粹主义和惩罚措施为主。本文认为现实更加微妙，并提出了刑罚民粹主义和民粹主义政策制定的概念，并特别关注匈牙利的背景。本文概述了过去二十年中最重要的刑事政策措施，并研究了立法行为的严格程度是否以及如何影响量刑实践。本文重点介绍了一项关于刑法民意的实证调查的相关结果，并以对降低刑事责任年龄限制与刑事民粹主义交叉点的个案研究作为结尾。