In 23 Countries, Emergency Powers Have Outlasted the Emergencies by 847 Days

The number is 847. That is the average number of days that emergency powers have remained in effect after the stated emergency ended across 23 countries that invoked constitutional crisis provisions between 2020 and 2024. In twelve of those nations, the emergency powers have never been formally rescinded. In eight others, they were technically lifted but immediately replaced with new legislation granting equivalent executive authority. The pattern, an Editorial analysis of constitutional records, parliamentary proceedings, and government decrees shows, is consistent across continents and regime types: democracies and autocracies alike have discovered that emergency powers, once tasted, are difficult to relinquish.

The data, obtained by The Editorial through freedom of information requests, legislative archives, and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance's constitutional tracking project, covers emergency declarations made between January 2020 and December 2024. We cross-referenced each declaration with official government announcements of when the triggering emergency — pandemic, civil unrest, natural disaster, or security threat — was formally declared resolved. The gap between resolution and the lifting of emergency powers tells a story that constitutional framers never anticipated.

What the Records Show

Hungary leads the dataset. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's government first invoked emergency powers in March 2020, citing the COVID-19 pandemic. The Hungarian Parliament granted the government authority to rule by decree, suspend certain laws, and extend the state of emergency indefinitely without parliamentary approval. When Hungary officially declared the pandemic emergency over in May 2022, the expanded executive powers did not disappear. Instead, within 72 hours, the government declared a new 'state of danger' citing the war in Ukraine. As of April 2026, Hungary has operated under continuous emergency provisions for 2,218 days — more than six years.

El Salvador presents perhaps the starkest case of emergency powers becoming governance itself. President Nayib Bukele first declared a state of exception in March 2022, following a surge in gang violence that left 62 people dead in a single weekend. The constitutional provision was designed for 30-day periods, renewable only with legislative approval. Bukele's supermajority in the Legislative Assembly has renewed it 48 consecutive times. The state of exception has now been in continuous effect for more than 1,461 days, suspending due process rights for over 80,000 detained individuals.

The Scale of the Problem

Our analysis identified three distinct patterns of emergency power extension. The first, exemplified by Hungary and Tunisia, involves the serial declaration of new emergencies to maintain existing powers — what the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe has termed 'emergency laundering.' The second, visible in El Salvador and the Philippines, relies on compliant legislatures that rubber-stamp indefinite renewals. The third, observed in Egypt and Thailand, involves the formal lifting of emergency provisions while simultaneously enacting ordinary legislation that grants equivalent powers permanently.

Tunisia illustrates the third pattern with particular clarity. President Kais Saied invoked Article 80 of the constitution in July 2021, suspending parliament and dismissing the prime minister. The emergency powers were formally ended in 2022 when a new constitution was enacted — but that constitution, drafted by a committee appointed by Saied himself, institutionalized the very powers that had previously required emergency justification. The president now governs with authority that would have required a state of exception under the old constitutional order.

The Cases Behind the Numbers

Behind the aggregate figures are individual lives suspended in legal limbo. In San Salvador, María Elena Hernández has not seen her 19-year-old son, Carlos, since May 2023. He was detained under the state of exception while walking home from a construction job. No charges have been filed. No hearing has been scheduled. Under normal constitutional procedure, detention without charge would be limited to 72 hours. Under the state of exception, it has no limit. 'They told me to wait,' Hernández said in an interview at the offices of the human rights organization Cristosal. 'It has been 690 days. I am still waiting.'

In Budapest, the journalist Szabolcs Panyi has documented how emergency decree powers have been used to classify information that would normally be subject to freedom of information laws. A 2024 decree, issued under the Ukraine-related state of danger, allows the government to classify any document relating to energy security for 30 years. Panyi's requests for information about natural gas contracts with Russia have been denied under this provision. 'The emergency is the energy crisis,' Panyi told The Editorial. 'But the emergency power is being used to hide corruption, not to solve energy problems.'

What the Institutions Say

The governments in question defend their actions in remarkably similar terms. The Hungarian government's communication office responded to The Editorial's inquiry by citing 'unprecedented security challenges' and noting that 'the constitutional framework is being fully respected.' El Salvador's presidential communications secretary, Sofia Medina, said in a statement that 'the Salvadoran people overwhelmingly support the state of exception' and cited polling showing 91% approval for the government's security policies. Tunisia's presidency did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

International bodies have expressed concern but taken limited action. The European Commission has invoked Article 7 proceedings against Hungary, but the unanimity requirement for sanctions has prevented meaningful consequences. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has issued multiple resolutions regarding El Salvador, none of which the Bukele government has acknowledged. The African Union's governance architecture, weakened by the suspensions of multiple member states since 2020, has issued no formal assessment of Tunisia's constitutional transformation.

The Accountability Gap

The constitutional scholar Tom Ginsburg, of the University of Chicago Law School, has spent three decades studying emergency provisions across legal systems. His assessment is blunt. 'Most constitutions were written with the assumption that emergencies would be temporary and that political actors would have an incentive to return to normal governance,' Ginsburg told The Editorial. 'What we are seeing now is the discovery that there is often no penalty for not returning. If you control the legislature and the courts don't intervene, there is no mechanism to force you back.'

The data suggests that constitutional design matters, but only partially. Countries with automatic sunset clauses — provisions that require affirmative legislative action to renew emergency powers — showed shorter extensions, averaging 312 days beyond the stated emergency. Countries requiring supermajority legislative approval showed an average of 487 days. But countries with simple majority renewal requirements averaged 1,156 days, suggesting that the threshold for continuation is a significant variable.

The most effective constraint, the data shows, is not constitutional text but judicial independence. In South Korea, the Constitutional Court struck down aspects of pandemic emergency measures within six months of their enactment. In Germany, the Federal Constitutional Court limited the duration and scope of COVID-era restrictions. In Costa Rica, the Supreme Court required detailed justification for each renewal of health emergency powers. In all three cases, the emergency powers were lifted within 18 months of the emergency's official end.

What Comes Next

The Venice Commission, the Council of Europe's advisory body on constitutional matters, issued updated guidelines in December 2025 recommending that constitutions include mandatory judicial review of emergency declarations, automatic sunset clauses with no possibility of indefinite renewal, and opposition veto rights over extensions beyond 90 days. The recommendations have been adopted by Moldova and Montenegro in recent constitutional amendments. They have been ignored by the 23 countries in this analysis.

In San Salvador, María Elena Hernández has stopped counting the days since she last saw her son. She now counts the renewals of the state of exception — 48 and counting. 'They say it is temporary,' she said. 'But temporary for them means forever for us.' The 847-day average is not an abstraction. It is 847 days of suspended rights, silenced courts, and citizens waiting for a normal that may never return.