László Sólyom
László Sólyom (, ; 3 January 1942 – 8 October 2023) was a Hungarian politician, lawyer, and librarian who was President of Hungary from 2005 until 2010. Previously he was the first president of the Constitutional Court of Hungary from 1990 to 1998. A prominent jurist and pro-democracy activist, Sólyom became the first president of the Constitutional Court at a time when the country was in the final years of its democratic transition after decades of communist rule. During his mandate, the Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional, strengthened the protection of freedom of expression and conscience, and legitimated the domestic partnerships of homosexuals. Later, in 2005, he was elected president of Hungary, a largely ceremonial position, as an independent candidate. He held this office until 2010. Early life László Sólyom was born on 3 January 1942 in Pécs, Kingdom of Hungary, the son of lawyer Ferenc Sólyom and Aranka Lelkes. On 24 October 1956, Sólyom joined an anti-communist demonstration with his fellow students of the Széchenyi István High School. He began his studies in law and political science at the University of Pécs in 1960, graduating in 1965. Sólyom also trained to become a librarian at the National Széchényi Library between 1963 and 1965. In 1966, Ferenc Mádl, who was then the Secretary of the Legal Department of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, offered him an assistant professorship at the University of Jena's Institute of Civil Law, earning his doctorate in German Civil Law in 1969. In 1977 he published the first of his essays on law, whose main object of study was the protection of people and the environment. Sólyolm earned a doctorate in Political and Legal Sciences in 1981. Back in Hungary, Sólyolm started working as a researcher and began teaching in 1983 at the Civil Law Department of the Faculty of Law and Political Science of the Eötvös Loránd University. In 1984, he completed another academic internship at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Private Law and in 1988 he did research at the University of Frankfurt. Years later, in 1993, Sólyolm began teaching at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University and, since 2002, at the Andrássy University Budapest. Already in the mid-1980s, he worked as a legal advisor for various civic and environmental movements, joining the environmental organization Duna Kör in 1984 and participating in their protests, such as those against the construction of the Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros Dams. In the 1980s, Sólyolm participated in civic organizations that contributed to the democratic transition in the country. In 1988 and 1989 Sólyom was the secretary of the Publicity Club, and he became a member of the board of the Independent Lawyers' Forum in 1989. He also participated in the on 27 September 1987 with other intellectuals opposed to the János Kádár regime and was one of the founding members of the then-illegal Hungarian Democratic Forum in 1989. Sólyolm became member of the Hungarian Democratic Forum's executive and was in charge of the constitutional reform proposals. He was