The concept of danger to society is perhaps the most controversial element of the Criminal Code's definition of crime. This concept plays a prominent role in the determination of criminal liability in domestic criminal law. In the 20th century, its necessity in our Criminal Code, which was in force at the time, was the subject of debate among jurists of repute in the field of criminal law.

In the socialist criminal law of the pre-communist era, the concept of danger to society was used to express the 'class nature' of criminal law. After the 1990s, this concept - in the science of criminal law, in legislation and in the application of law as well - was cleared of the content elements adopted from Soviet law to serve the aims of party-state policy. Nowadays, the definition of danger to society is so devoid of ideological, party-political connotations that it is regarded by a significant number of legal scholars in the field of criminal law and even by case law as the conceptual equivalent of material illegality, taken from German legal theory (ÚJVÁRI, 2003).

In this paper, I will present the emergence and reception of the concept of danger to society in Hungarian criminal law and criminal jurisprudence, from the preceding period – which applied formal illegality – to the Criminal Code of legal force.