Benedek Varsányi

Benedek Varsányi is a counselor at the Constitutional Court of Hungary. In the academic year 2022-23, as a Fulbright Foreign Student Grantee, he is pursuing an LL.M. degree at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law, specializing in technology and media law.

He received his legal degree in 2008 at the Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Law, Budapest. During his university years he focused on freedom of religion and electoral law, winning awards with his papers at National Scientific Students’ Associations Conferences. He also studied constitutional jurisprudence and ecclesiastical law as an Erasmus student in Rome, Italy, at the Sapienza Università di Roma. In 2011 received a specialized degree in legislative drafting at the Eötvös Loránd University.

In Fall 2008, with the scholarship of the Hungarian American Coalition, he interned at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington, D.C., USA, contributing to reports and assisting research in the New European Democracies Project and in the Energy and National Security Program.

Throughout his work, Benedek gained experience with a wide range of issues in constitutional law. Between 2006 and 2010, he worked in multiple positions in the Ministry of Justice in Hungary, where he primarily reviewed draft regulations ensuring compliance with constitutional and legislative drafting standards. Since 2010, at the Constitutional Court of Hungary, he has been advising judges and drafting opinions, working on cases mainly concerning the rule of law and democracy, electoral law, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of information and the right to privacy, right to a fair trial, and judicial independence.

In Spring 2015, he participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), focusing on the U.S. Judicial System, visiting courts and other professional institutions in multiple regions within the USA.

For over a decade, as a pro bono supervisory board member, Benedek has been supporting the work of the Carpathian Foundation-Hungary, a non-profit organization aiming to preserve the social, ethnic, cultural and environmental values and sustainable development of the Carpathian Euroregion.