In Hungary almost every reform has its reference to the integration in the west, especially European Union. The explanation for failures is the difficulties of adjustment. The dilemma is what kind of reasons result this problem: is it a national feature or the original distress of Hungary. We can say that the root of it is the problem of following patterns. The origin of these patterns are from the western world but these patterns needed years or sometimes ages to reach the present situation. It was an organic development.

In our modern world we can find plenty of legislative elements of globalization, unifying and harmonizing rules and institutions. Most of the international economic organizations make every effort to harmonize economic institutions, but the example of European Union shows that borders are not as simple as it seems. This harmonization and unification has to surpass it to a wider perspective (e.g. administration, public education, telecommunication or private law institutions, etc.).

In the study I examine the development of self-governing and local governments. In Hungary over the last years – since the birth of self-governing – many changes could be found. Reforms followed reforms. According to a survey the most important fields of reforms are the following:

• decentralization
• privatization
• decreasing the role of public sector
• reform of the law for public servants
• information technology
• financial and budgetary management.

Reforms of local governments are part of the globalization especially in those countries where change of the regime has happened. To reach the desired western pattern some lemmas are necessary:

• constitutional state
• territorialism of state
• guaranteed financial sources
• stability from the perspective of economy and policy.

These foundational criterions are spread by international organizations like NAFTA, GATT, WTO, IMF, WB, OECD or EU itself. Plenty of recommendations exist on this field for administration and local governments. The Council of Europe has a basic document, the Charta of European Local Governments.

If we examine the problem closer we can see that in spite of every recommendation or regulation, local governments are in trouble for example in Hungary. There are exact rules or principles to ensure the liberty or free space for them, but financial problems always exist.

In the essay I analyzes the way of following patterns in typical countries and try to show how hard is to introduce a pattern from a moment to another that has prestigious past.

I examine one of the grounds for the preclusion of culpability and grounds for the termination of culpability: error. Grounds for the preclusion of culpability are the followings: infancy, abnormal mental condition, constraint and menace, error, negligible degree of danger to society of an act, self-defence, extreme necessity (emergency), absence of private motion, other grounds defined in the Act. Grounds for the termination of culpability are: the death of the perpetrator, prescription, remission, cessation or becoming negligible of the dangerousness for society of the act, other grounds defined in the Act.

Grounds for the preclusion of culpability and grounds for the termination of culpability mean that culpability shall be precluded.

Error - as an obstacle of the preclusion of culpability – is not as usual as other grounds for the preclusion of culpability, for example: insane mental state, constraint or menace. Error means - 27. § of the Hungarian Criminal Code – that the perpetrator shall not be punishable for a fact of which he was not aware on perpetration. The person, who commits an act in the erroneous hypothesis that it is not dangerous for society and who has reasonable ground for this hypothesis, shall not be punishable. Error shall not exclude culpability, if it is caused by negligence and the law also punishes perpetration deriving from negligence.

I examine error’s ruling from Roman law to now days. One of the most important books was written by Nandor Bernolak: The Error doctrine. I succeeded Bernolak’s method to search how error was regulated in different ages. Bernolak wrote his essay in 1910, so he described the rules of error as it appeared in Code Csemegi. I follow his method during the examination of 1950.:II. Criminal Code of General Part, 1961. IV. Criminal Code and finally 1978. IV. Criminal Code.

I found many differences and similarities between Criminal Codes, Propositions, and finally I compiled a table about the changes of the development in error’s legal history.

There is a rule that is known generally from Roman law: „ignorantia facti, non iuris excusat”, which means: ignorance of the law means no excuse.

Copyright law is a relative young area of civil law. Intellectual property and creations ensure the revelation of human personality. The infringement of these rights became general with the development of technology. From the beginning copyright law tried not only circumscribe the possibilities of unrestricted use but ensure effective protection to authors with exact sanctions.

In the essay I examine the international and Hungarian regulation against usurpation demonstrating all sanctions and opportunities. Not only one area of law gives protection to these rights. Civil law, criminal law and administration law has different sanctions for infringements.

On 29th April 2004 2004/48/EC directive has been accepted about validation of intellectual property rights. The explanation of this directive is that different regulations in member states endanger the unified internal market. The directive consists of the rules of proceedings and sanctions.

In this study I present the development about system of sanctions form an international and from a Hungarian perspective. I examine all types of sanctions concerning to the field of civil law and try to analyze functions and aims in connection with them. The effectiveness and history of these legal institutions are also presented in the study.

Comparing the directive and the Hungarian copyright law it can be said that despite of all circumstances the Hungarian law has to be improved especially on the field of proceedings and temporary arrangements. These rules are specified compared to the ones in the Hungarian civil procedure, so judges have to take care of these differences.

On the very swampy field of damages for non-pecuniary loss there is a special problem called claims of relatives. These claims are also known as claims of secondary victims or third parties. In this legal situation the injury itself hurts not the claimer himself. The claimer has non-pecuniary or moral loss because of his connection with the injured person. He is not the direct and suffering subject but the one who has a loss in his personal rights.

In Hungary the question is whether these claims can be permitted or not. During the changing structure of damages for non-pecuniary loss in the second half of the 20th century, this problem fitted to the actual judgement of moral damages. Now days the question is a little bit easier: in almost every decision courts admit the right of relatives to claim damages for an injury against there beloved relative, but in most of the cases they demand that plaintiffs has to demonstrate manifested losses not only the infringement of their personality rights.

In this essay beside the Hungarian jurisdiction I examine German, French, English, Belgian and Dutch legal points of view too. The most interesting and – in my opinion – the one that can be useful for the upcoming new Hungarian Civil Code is the Dutch system.

Dutch Civil Code limits the possibility of ‘third parties’ to claim damages for non-pecuniary loss as a result of the injury or death of another person. In typical cases the plaintiff would like to claim compensation because he suffered mental illness from witnessing the death of another person, namely a relative. This claim is not awarded by Dutch courts because of the prohibition of Civil Code, but the interpretation of the mentioned provision lives restrictively in jurisdiction. We can find two situations when the claim of third parties can be awarded. First of all, the claimant can only claim for damages, caused by a mental trauma because of being witness of an injury against another person, if he can establish that the aggressor (defendant) also committed an unlawful act vis-à-vis the claimant himself, which resulted in the trauma. It is really difficult to be demonstrated because of the causation required by BW. The process to verify that the aggressor, who committed an unlawful act against another person, causes the trauma is almost impossible in some cases. The second chance of the secondary victim to claim for compensation is if he verifies that the trauma amounts to physical or non-physical injury. If this is the case, the claimant can get compensation of his pecuniary loss (such as cost of medical treatment) and non-pecuniary loss on the basis of his non-physical personal injury.

A famous case in Dutch case law is ‘Taxi bus case’. A 5-year old little girl was riding her bike close to her home, when a taxi bus overruns her. The bus actually rides over the girl’s head. The mother was immediately warned by one of the neighbours and found her daughter with her face turned to the ground. First, the mother called the ambulance hoping that the girl was still alive. When the mother tried to turn her daughter’s head to look her in the face, she experienced that her hand disappeared into the skull of the girl. The mother noticed that the substance next to her girl’s head was not, as she considered, her vomit, but appeared to be the girl’s brain itself. The mother suffered severe mental illness because of the shock of this sight and the realization. Dutch law is consequent in the question that there is no claim for non-pecuniary damages subsequent to death of a relative.  Taxi bus case was the first when Dutch Supreme Court awarded the right to compensation of non-pecuniary damages to somebody who lost his relative. The decision contained that the act committed towards the child, must also be regarded as tortuous towards the mother. The Court emphasized that there was a distinction between the consequences of the child’s death, for which no non-pecuniary damages may be awarded, and the consequences of the confrontation with the accident, for which damages may indeed be awarded. The mother received 14,000 Euros for non-pecuniary damages. This case shows that although in principle the plaintiff has a right to claim compensation for the exact damages he suffered, the courts are free to assess the damage in a more abstract way, if that corresponds better to its nature.

Examining this case it is obvious that extra conditions are demanded to claim for non-pecuniary damages because of the loss of a relative. Only the fact of losing a close relative is not enough for a successful action. There have to be special circumstances, which demonstrate that the unlawful act made a direct effect to the plaintiff, who became the primary victim.

The English solution is interesting because not only the relatives have right to claim but almost anybody who can verify a close relationship with the injured person. In my opinion this system ensures a more coherent and logical jurisdiction, because during the examination of authorization not only a legal fact – being a relative of the injured person – establishes the right to claim but a real emotional relationship.

In the last decades of our globalized world terrorism has become a phenomenon that implies a worldwide challenge and can hardly be prevented, and that is difficult to combat against with means of national and international law. The international terrorism in the sense as we use it nowdays has a history of only one and a half centuries, but since the appearance of concrete terrorist attacks is always changing (and of course the ideology and supplier of the different groups) there has not been any consensus yet among states or within particular international organizations how to define it. But it should be taken into consideration that attacks not only affect the state where they are executed but also the whole society and even the international order. That is why it would be essential to define it in international terms, because without an exact definition the proper defence against it can not be determined either.  

It has to be emphasized that it does not exist a common strategy that could be adapted any time in any case. It can not be forgotten that the terrorism itself is also an answer, so its political, economical and social roots should be taken into consideration whilst choosing the best way to prevent it. The different means (primarily legal and classical ones) should be combined and used by states in strict cooperation, because these don’t substitute but complete each other. It is also important to underline that it is not enough to react upon terrorist actions and restore its harmful effects, but it is also essential to prevent it by eliminating its causes. Unfortunately, proactive strategies are not common enough - mainly because of its costs - in spite of the fact that in the long run it would be worth using them.

It is important to act in conformity with international law, because this can legitimate the reaction after an attack. The main task for states is to elaborate an exact legal framework for it, because without global accords and without the acceptance of this policy within the nation an effective policy against terrorism cannot be realized. National criminal law should be aggravated, flow of information among intelligence services, cooperation among media and governments should be developed and it is also essential to inform the society properly and make it obvious that assistance at a terrorist attack is also to be punished. International measures should be taken in order to avoid financing of terrorist actions by preventing money-laundering. These means can be used even with certain restrictions on criminal law, but always respecting human rights either that of the victims or that of the delinquents. 

To institutionalize international actions under the aegis of the United Nations numerous agreements were accepted, eg. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons (1973), Convention against Taking of Hostages (1979), Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (1999) and  some conventions were signed on the Prevention Crimes committed in aircrafts, etc. The main problem is that these accords are not signed by all member states and hence their efficiency can be questioned. Of course not only the UN try to solve this problem with international conventions, so does the EU. Its activity has considerably increased since the attacks of Madrid, because this case made two things clear: even Europe is vulnerable and well-timed attacks can even lead to political changes.

To be able to meet the challenges that terrorism mean nowdays there are two things to emphasize: first of all a worldwide cooperation would be essential and secondly the provision of financial sources for each state so that it were able to ensure national and promote global security.