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• Questions around prescription by title

  81-89

  Tucsek Máté

  Views:

  388

  In this paper I am willing to introduce different aspects of the new institution of the Hungarian civil law, the so-called prescription by title. This young way of acquiring property was a novelty in the field of law and jurisprudence, and a novelty for entities as well. The law of property contains the most important and fundamental rules of private law, this is the reason why it is always ultimately important that the legislator and the exact purpose of the legislation has to be as clearly defined as possible, since this is what ensures the security of property transactions and guarantees the freedom and protection of one of the most ancient social institutions, property. By its unique nature, prescription has always been the subject of legal disputes, thus the arguments above are cumulative.

  The aim of this paper is to present the regulation of prescription by title, its dogmatic features, draw parallels with its ancestor in Hungarian legal history and an unusual foreign example, examine some relevant aspects of judicial practice and finally attempt to compose a possible  alternative regulatory technique.

• Stations in legal history of error; focused on Nándor Bernolák’s thesis of error

  Katalin Mónusné Kiss

  Views:

  51

  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.

• Thoughts about accessory private prosecution

  Sándor Kardos

  Views:

  69

  In Hungary the new code of criminal procedure established a new legal institution to the Hungarian legal system: accessory private prosecution. This kind of private prosecution gives opportunity to the afflicted person to continue penal procedure in case of negative sentences from investigation authorities. If the prosecutor or the investigation authority stops proceeding or the prosecutor sets aside, withdraws formal accusation, afflicted person can substitute them during a penal procedure and has a right to claim the continuation of it. Our valid code does not limit the field of crimes this legal institution of accessory private prosecution can be applied. But there are some strict reasons, which limit this right of the afflicted person. If the investigation authorities neglected formal accusation because of childhood, death, prescription, clemency, prohibition of ne bis in idem, accessory private prosecution cannot be applied.

  Pros of accessory private prosecution can be found in the rights of afflicted persons. Criminal power of the state cannot be absolute, so we have to give the right for the injured to judge whether he insists on taking the responsibility of the perpetrator despite the opposite opinion of public bodies. This legal institution can help omissions of prosecutors to be remedied. Practicing this right depends on the stadium of the procedure. During the investigation period or the period of formal accusation reasons for accessory private prosecution are different.

  According to the new rules of the code, applying an advocate in the procedure is an obligation for the afflicted person. This regulation ensures that the structure of penal proceedings cannot be changed basically. In a normal procedure there is always a professional expert, the prosecutor on the side of accusation. That is why the code does not permit accusation without applying an advocate.

  Costs are interesting question in case of accessory private prosecution. In popular action procedures costs are paid by the state. When the afflicted person practices the right of accessory private prosecution, state pays in advance, but if perpetrator is acquitted or the court stops proceeding, costs should be paid by the private prosecutor himself. There are some rules to ease this burden for the afflicted person: if he has bad financial capacity and he can certify this circumstance, court can authorize him not to pay for the fee of the advocate.

  There is a special question in connection with accessory private prosecution: representation of the state. In these procedures the afflicted person is the state or one of the state bodies itself. There are two points of view to answer the question: who is authorized to represent the state as an accessory private prosecutor during a penal procedure. First we have to make difference between the injuries: if the injury is against the state while practising public authority, the injured party is the state itself. But if the injury hit the state as a civil legal entity, a possessor, the right to claim is in the hand of that public body, which was entrusted to handle the injured property. This theory means that in case of injuries against the public author state, only the prosecutor can represent it, so there is no chance for accessory private prosecution.

  The other solution for this problem has its starting point that in every crime against public property, accessory private prosecution can be applied. In this case the state can be represented by that part of it, which has interest. Although there are no jurisdiction in this question, because accessory private prosecution was established by the new code from 1st July 2003 after fifty years into the Hungarian legal practice. According to the regulations of the code, we can find the following sentence: afflicted person is whose right or legal interest was hurt or endangered by the crime. Analyzing this definition the argument can be read previously is decent for those situations, when we would like to find the legal representative of the state as an accessory private prosecutor.

  Accessory private prosecution is a good solution that fits to the new directions of law development, to increase rights of the afflicted person. Naturally, time needs to become a well-adopted legal institution in Hungarian legal system after half a century silence.