The paper uses Hannah Arendt’s concept of revolution to discuss democratic backsliding and human rights in Hungary since the democratic transition in 1989. The main focus of the paper is, how the democratic backsliding after 2010 in Hungary effected the state of human rights in the country, which is a Member State of the European Union since 2004. To understand the change the introduction describes the democratic transition in 1989-1990, and its achievements in the comprehensive constitutional amendment of 1989, as a revolution in the sense of Arendt’s seminal work ‘On Revolution’, and her recently published essay ‘The Freedom to be Free.’ Part one deals with the constitutional and statutory regulation of human right protection after this ‘rule of law revolution.’ Part two discusses the ‘constitutional counter-revolution’ after the 2010 parliamentary election, which resulted in a new ‘illiberal’ constitution, called Fundamental Law and several statutes dismantling the guarantees of human rights. In this part, special attention is paid to the decreased possibilities of state institutions, such as the Constitutional Court, the ordinary judiciary and ombudsmen, as well as civil society organizations to effectively protect fundamental rights. The fourth part assesses the efforts of European institutions to force the Hungarian government to comply with the human rights standards laid down in the European Convention of Human Rights and in the Treaty of the European Union. The paper concludes that due to the democratic backsliding the constitutional guarantees of human rights ceased to exist in Hungary, and neither internal nor external challenges could prevent this development towards a new authoritarian regime.