Hungarian President Katalin Novák resigned from her post on Saturday after she admitted to making mistakes in relation to the presidential pardon of a convict who helped to cover up child abuse in a Budapest children’s home.

Former justice minister and the governing Fidesz party’s lead candidate in the upcoming European elections, Judit Varga, also announced her decision to resign from parliament and step back from frontline politics for her part in counter-signing the pardon during her time at the justice ministry.

In an address broadcast on state television, Novák expressed her regret at the optics of the situation related to her pardon issued in April 2023 for a man who was sentenced to three years in prison in 2018 for pressuring child abuse victims of a children’s home director to remain silent.