Gatekeeper of Rights V- Supranational Memory and Domestic Amnesia in Higher Education Rights.

Abstract In November 2025, the European Parliament adopted its second interim report on Hungary under Article 7(1) TEU (415–193–28), reiterating its classification as a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy” and calling for tougher use of conditionality and budgetary tools. At the same time, Council Decision (EU) 2022/2506 and a revised RRF/Repower EU plan have left most of Hungary’s EU funding effectively frozen behind twenty-seven “super-milestones” on judicial independence, anti-corruption, and academic-freedom safeguards. This article argues that, against this backdrop, Hungary’s higher-education sector now operates within a split memory regime: while supranational institutions diligently record structural rule-of-law failures, domestic watchdogs and quality-assurance actors increasingly cultivate domestic amnesia. Using a detailed case study from Central European Medical University's English-language medical program—denial of access to compulsory dissection, an unsecured “Survey About Academic Progress”, coerced OMHV questionnaire participation through priority exam registration, and a dean-level takedown threat against whistleblower publications—the article reconstructs how the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights (AJBH), the Equal Treatment unit, NAIH, and MAB generate file numbers but avoid merit-based decisions. The resulting Ombudsman–court deflection loop produces an illusory remedy: institutions exist and “coordinate” under Ebktv. 15/B and Ark. 48, yet nobody adjudicates the substance of the rights claims. Doctrinally, the article reads this configuration as a breach of Article 41 CFR’s right to good administration, Article 47 CFR’s right to an effective remedy, Article 13 CFR, and Article X of the Hungarian Fundamental Law on academic freedom. It concludes that supranational memory and budget conditionality have become the Union’s only reliable levers for protecting student and educational rights in Hungary. It suggests indicators for integrating domestic archiving practices and institutional silence into the EU’s 2026 Rule of Law cycle.