Hungarian President Katalin Nowak resigned on Saturday after it was revealed she had pardoned a man convicted of complicity in a child abuse case. “I made a mistake,” she said in a televised speech, the AP reported.

Novak used her powers as president in early 2023 to overturn the conviction of a man who tried to cover up child abuse. Between 2004 and 2016, the director of the orphanage sexually abused at least ten children, the AP writes, and the man in question pressured victims to withdraw their complaints against the director. For this he was sentenced to more than three years in prison.

“I decided to grant clemency in April last year, believing that the convicted person did not abuse the vulnerability of the children in his care,” Reuters quoted Novak as saying. “The pardon and lack of motivation have raised doubts about the zero-tolerance policy applicable to pedophilia.”

leader of the European party
Like Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Novak is a member of the conservative Fidesz party. Orban's government has distanced itself from Novak by proposing a constitutional amendment that would limit the president's pardon powers in cases of child abuse, Reuters reports. Despite this, on Friday more than a thousand people in the Hungarian capital Budapest demanded her resignation.