The 28th of September has always been a special day to me. It is the day when my mother and my first love was born. After yesterday, the day takes on a different layer of meaning as well, another one of celebrating life. A life. The life of Daniel (Dani) Karsai, who had battled ALS bravely, until it conquered his body.

When a man reaches the age of 40, he becomes comtemplative regarding the meaning of life and the end. This may not be a rule, but I know I certainly did. Death was never a strange thing to me. It surrounded me all my young and adult life, taking different shapes and forms, and taking away people very close to me, too.

Him, I admit, I did not know that well. I would not say at all, but we maybe met at two conferences over the years and I listened to him at some online events. But what he did always resonated with me, had a special meaning to me. He is … was 6 years my senior, so we were contemporaries in a field of the legal profession and in a country that does not have many people. Even if we did not know each other, we knew of each other. I could look to him and his work as an example.

When I looked at the news announcing his death, I’ve seen items that called him “an attorney, constitutional lawyer, human rights activist and a martial artist”. I wondered how the internet would describe me, should I meet an early demise.

We share almost all of the above traits, only as an academic I am not qualified to act as an attorney in court, and I happen to be a less activistic defender of human rights than he was. I might have used different means to fight for the same goals, but I felt and still feel for him.

On this blog, we’ve tried to share some pieces detailing and debating his case made against the Hungarian government, fighting for the “full right” to die with dignity, without restrictions for cases similar to his — to no avail. He might have been a martial artist, like I’ve been in the past, but he could not win this fight, and leave life’s dojo unscathed.

There may be some fights that we lose over the course of our lives, but I think it is still worth living aware of the fact that we can pick our battles wisely, argue our sides wisely, and admit defeat wisely as well. I think that Dani’s life is a testament to all of the above. He was a brave soldier of human rights, a real activist, a superb legal mind and constitutionalist. He chose his battles wisely, but ultimately life gave him no choice, and an opponent against whom he could do nothing but to make the ultimate sacrifice and admit defeat.

He might be gone, but his torch and fight might be carried on by others shaping our human rights landscape, dedicated to his determination, dedication and diligence, even in death. Whether death in the Hungarian constitutional system becomes one with grace and dignity for cases similar to Dani’s is still to be seen. But I am convinced that his life, fight and death were not in vain. I pray to have the same courage, stamina and humor to carry on against all odds, if I ever find myself in a similar situation. May eternal light shine upon him, and may he rest in peace.

Márton Sulyok JD, LLM, PhD is a Visiting Researcher at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution in Washington D.C. He is also an Asst. Professor (Senior Lecturer) in Constitutional Law and Human Rights at the Institute of Public Law, University of Szeged in Hungary. JD (2007, Szeged), LLM in Anglo-Saxon Law and English Legal Translation (2012, Szeged), PhD in Law and Political Sciences (2017, Szeged). Certified as an American Legal Expert (since 2009) in a joint training program of the University of Toledo (OH, USA) College of Law and the University of Szeged Faculty of Law and Political Sciences. Currently, Prof. Sulyok is the Head of the Public Law Center at Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) in Budapest, Hungary. Previously, he sat on the Management Board of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (Vienna, 2015-2020), and is now a member of the European Group of Public Law, the Scientific Committee of the EPLO (European Public Law Organization), where he also sits on the Board of Directors.