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About the necessity of a new criminal act: or notes on the criminal offense of agreement in restraint of competition in public procurement and concession procedures
99-121Views:455The criminal act included in Subsection 1 Section 420 of Act C of 2012 on the Criminal Code (hereinafter referred to as Criminal Code) is the only one in the entire Criminal Code where the disposition includes the public procurement procedure as an element of the criminal act. In spite of this, further punishable criminal acts may be associated with the public procurement procedure which are inevitably committed or completed in terms of the legal stadia of the crime, provided that any criminal relationship is established between the parties when public funds are allocated during the course of a tendering procedure.
The non-exhaustive examples of the – examined – conduct subject to proceedings show that the basis of an unfair public procurement procedure is the committing of any of the corruption criminal offenses, and then, after the public procurement procedure had been concluded, the felony of agreement in restraint of competition will constitute the criminal act without prejudice to the ne bis in idem principle, i.e. the criminal act specified in Subsection (1) Section 420 of the Criminal Code is not the definition of public procurement corruption. In order to verify this, I will outline what I personally understand as public procurement corruption.
The primary aim of the study is to support the argument that the delict referred to above is unable to fulfil the intention of the legislator, namely decreasing public procurement corruption. As a secondary focus, the reasons behind the necessity of a new criminal act are referred to.
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The Legal Status of the Inventor in the First Hungarian Patent Act
19-33Views:115The first Hungarian Act on Patents was adopted in 1895. The study examines the regulation of the inventor’s legal status in this act and the problems the legislature had to solve. In the first part of the study the inventor’s rights are described regarding the inventor’s personal and valuable rights and interests. By the beginning of the 20th century license became the most important valuable right and interest, although its regulation could not be found in any act. In fact, a decision of the Patent Court in 1928 declared the regulation of leasehold valid, which raised greater and greater difficulties in legal application from the second half of the 20th century. The second part of the study examines the inventor’s obligation of payment and functioning. The latter is one of the special features of the intellectual property system which is regulated by the Industrial Property Union.
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Is the New Regulation Justified? Applicability of the New Rules of Self-defense in Case-law
129-147Views:288In the history of the regulation of self-defense, Act C of 2012 has resulted in the most substantial change. The greatest innovation in the act is the introduction of the situational self-defense, which creates an irrebuttable presumption that the unlawful attacks carried out under certain circumstances shall be considered as attacks against life. The new regulation has been criticized a lot, mostly because there are fears that the new rules of law will be misused. Through the case-law of the Supreme Court relating to self-defense in the last ten years, this study intends to reveal whether it was justified to include the situational self-defense in the new law or whether the concerns in connection with situational self-defense can be considered legitimate.
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The Effect of the Jurisprudence of the ECHR on the Hungarian Criminal Procedure Act
128-150Views:308The case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human rights set the minimum level for the protection of fundamental rights that has to be guaranteed by all contracting parties, although national laws can establish higher standards. Point II of the general explanations of Bill No. T/13972 on the new Act on Criminal Procedure states that “meeting the requirements of the Fundamental Law of Hungary and the obligations of international law and EU law obviously mean a safeguarding minimum.” In Hungary the case law of the ECHR is reflected more and more both in the judgements of Hungarian courts and in the guidelines of higher courts but the difficulties of establishing interpretations in harmony with ECHR case law are common. The paper analyses the judgments of the ECHR in Hungarian cases between 2013 and 2016 related to pretrial detention, effective defence and the circumstances of restraint.
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A Cutting-Edge” Criminal Procedure? : Some Reflections on the Modernization of Hungarian Criminal Procedure Law
11-36.Views:302The study analyses the new Hungarian Criminal Procedure Act that entered into force in the summer of 2018. One aspect of the analysis is whether certain institutions of the law fulfil the constitutional requirements of criminal procedure. The other aspect is a sociological one. The past decades have brought many new developments in the field of society, economy and technology. The study, therefore, also revolves around the question of whether the new Criminal Procedure Act provides an adequate response to these challenges. The main finding of the study is that the legislation made the first steps in the right direction, however it did not introduce all the changes that would be necessary for a fair and modern criminal procedure. Besides, the act reflects predominantly the interests of the authorities while the rights and interests of other participants of the criminal procedure are not taken into consideration with the same weight
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The Beneficium Novorum in the Light of the Hungarian Procedural Reform Movements of the 19th and 20th Centuries
28-44Views:143The study examines the historical development of the beneficium novorum in the 19th and 20th century. This legal institution means the right of the parties to make such submissions that had not been made in first instance proceedings. Act I of 1911 (the first Hungarian code of civil procedure) made it possible without any boundaries based on the appellatio of Roman law. Act 1930 of XXXIV, however, restricted the freedom of submission in time with the enforcement of the principle of contingent cumulation. The study has a practical approach since it examines the question through archive sources and high court decisions. It argues that the application of the principle of contingent cumulation in the appeal proceedings was a successful legislative move which led to their shortening.
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Looking for Solutions of the Hungarian Legislation of Public Procurement
24-46Views:126The Hungarian public procurement law will be renewed from 1th January 2012. Because of the new Act on Public Procurement (PPA) the development of the legislation of the last years should be reviewed. What kind of problems did the legislature have to solve? How could the specificities of an adequate public procurement act be defined? How does the judicature affect the legislature? This study tries to give answers from the point of view of the judicature. It examines the results of legislation, the experiences of practice, the earlier amendments and the most essential attributes of the new PPA.
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The Criminal Provisions of the DDoS Attacks in the United States, Eu- rope and Hungary
66-83Views:356The Internet offers an opportunity to launch y wide range of cyberattacks such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, which exploits the vulnerabilities of the system network without access. DDoS attacks continue to grow in intensity and complexity. Due to the Crime-as-a-Service business model and online criminal markets DDoS attacks have become accessible to anyone willing to pay for such services. It can be launched easily, although it may cause serious social and economic damage. The aim of this paper to present the criminal provisions of the DDoS attack in the United States, Europe and Hungary.
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Trends, Directions, Legislative Efforts: the Abolition of the Civil Servant Status
179-195Views:161One of the most spectacular changes to the Hungarian employment system in recent years is that many former civil servants (‘közalkalmazott’) have lost their status and come under the scope of the Labour Code or have been subject to newly created status laws. As the Act on Civil Servants (‘Kjt.’) applies now only a few groups of civil servants, having been emptied out by successive reforms, it is not surprising that the future existence of the Act and of the autonomous status of civil servants is being called into question. But what factors have led to the gradual, and in recent years accelerating, decline of the Kjt.? Is the 'disappearance' of civil servants the result of internal processes that rationally follow from the development of the law, or is it the result of independent economic and political considerations? What was the original role of the Kjt. in the system of employment relationships and how can its ‘emptying’ be understood in an international and historical context? The study argues that this process is not an inevitable consequence of legal doctrinal developments, but rather the result of legislative efforts to abolish the uniform legal status of human service providers. Hungarian legislation is no exception to the neoliberal and neo-Weberian trends, while the comparative advantages previously enjoyed by civil servants are eroding and the regulation is becoming highly fragmented.
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The Transfer of Contract on the Basis of Statutory Provisions: Novation or Succession?
7-27Views:227In 2016, the Act CLXXVII of 2013 on the Transitional and Authorizing Provisions related to the Entry into Force of Act No. V of 2013 on the Civil Code (’Ptké.’) was amended, with questions of interpretation arising regarding the transfer of contract on the basis of statutory provisions. Therefore, after a short period of rest, the transfer of contract, the novation, and their relationship again became the focus of the attention of both legal scholars and practitioners. After a short introduction of the legal provisions on the transfer of contract, the amendment of 2016 and its reasons are reviewed. Then, both the controversies that emerged in the judicial practice and the answers given by the Hungarian Constitutional Court and the Curia are examined thoroughly.
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Integration of the Hungarian Water Utility Supplier from a Legal Aspect
144-162Views:125The present article focuses on the integration of water utility supplier operated public water utility supplies in Hungary. According to the new Hungarian law (namely Act CCIX of 2011 on water utility supplies), the integration is merely one element of the instruments of the decision-makers to achieve their goals. According to the preamble of the act, the goals are the followings: to establish the basic rights and obligations of water utility supply, to protect national water utility property, to provide sustainable development in water utility sectors, to fulfil the objectives of the protection of drinking water resources and to ensure the conditions of water utility supply serving the extensive promotion of consumer protection, furthermore to ensure the implementation of these objectives by detached and transparent regulations. Expectedly, the procedure will be finished only by 2016, however, the number of water utility suppliers having existed before the adoption of the new law (i. e. circa 400 suppliers) has been reduced to approximately one-tenth by begin of 2014.
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Hungarian Legislation on Unfair Commercial Practices – Critical Comments
54-67Views:153Directive 2005/29/EC concerning unfair commercial practices (hereafter: UCPD) has a maximum harmonization character. The aim of this paper is to review and criticize the rules of the Hungarian implementing act. The starting point is the ban stemming from the maximum harmonization: Member States during the implementation must not create or apply stricter or milder rules than those of the UCPD. However, the Hungarian act has many problematic parts in connection with both the rules and the definitions. Besides scrutinizing these questionable points the paper also uncovers the possible practical consequences.
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The New Hungarian Act on Irrigation in the Light of a Landscape-Orientated and Land-Use-Based Water Management
42-66Views:419The present article relates to water governance, and within that a specific Hungarian problem, namely, the cumulative water-related damage occurring in the Great Plain (floods, droughts and inland water) and the ambiguous situation of environmental services. Due to the complexity of the problem, the solution itself can only be systematic and can therefore only be solved in the context of integrated and adaptive water management. In Hungarian, this water management is defined as landscape-oriented water management by a research group connected to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The possible implementation of landscape-oriented water management has recently emerged in connection with the development of agricultural irrigation. The novelty of this study is the assessment of the new Hungarian Act concerning the irrigation taking into account the different aspects of hydrology, pedology and jurisprudence.
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Agricultural irrigation in Hungary, with special regards to the water resources levy and agricultural water supply fee
46-61Views:198The price of the agricultural irrigation is determined by the water resources levy and agricultural water supply fee, which are regulated under Article 15/A. (1) and Article 15/F. (1) of the Act LVII of 1995 on Water Management. A kind of dualism concerning the price of the irrigation can be observed in Hungary. On the one hand, the necessity to irrigate has to be reflected in the price due to the negative impacts of drought on crop production, although irrigation scores low on the hierarchy of water uses. On the other hand, the price must also express the value of water as an irreplaceable natural resource with limited renewable capacity. Based on the analysis of the said provisions, it can be concluded that though allowing derogations from paying for the agricultural irrigation can be justified in many cases, concerns can be raised regarding their uniform application without involving discretion regardless, among others factors, of the differences in the economic situation of the farmers.
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Reflections from the Viewpoint of Legal History on the Muslims in Hungary
11-23Views:128The Islamic religion, on the basis of Act No. XVII promulgated in 1917 in the Kingdom of Hungary, was given the status of a „recognized” religion i.e. religious community (in Hungarian: „elismert felekezet”, in Latin „licita religio”). By virtue of this act the Islamic religion received the same legal status as the Baptist church in 1905. It has to be pointed out that according to the census taken in 1910 in the Kingdom of Hungary, including Croatia-Slovenia which enjoyed a large degree of autonomy, there were only as many as 757 citizens belonging to the Islamic religious community. In this study we examine the legal status of the Muslim Community in Hungary until the end of World War I. As a main conclusion it can be stated that the law of Muslims (ius personarum) had never became a part of the legal system of Hungary, and that Islamic law never confronted the ius patrium.
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Some Issues in Treating the Changes of Circumstances under English Law
25-44Views:216All legal systems have their own solution for the treatment of the essential change of circumstance subsequent to the conclusion of the contract. Some of them allow for the judicial amendment of the contract, if the conditions of the clausula rebus sic stantibus are fulfilled. There are other states, where the possibility to modify the contract by judicial act in case of an essential change of circumstances subsequent to the contract conclusion has only recently been recognised by the national legislation. In the following, it is to be reviewed how and by what means and models English law treats those changes of circumstances which occur after the conclusion of the contract and significantly reshape the contractual relationships.
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Energy audit: EU-Law and its implementation in Germany
29-41Views:213The Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) No. 2012/27/EU establishes a set of binding measures to help the EU to reach its 20% energy efficiency target by 2020. Energy audits are an essential tool to achieve adequate energy savings (see art. 8. EED). The current study focuses on the EU legal requirement on Energy Audits and its implementation in Germany by the 2015 amended Act on Energy Services and other Energy Efficiency Measures (Gesetz über Energiedienstleistungen und andere Energieeffizienzmaßnahmen – EDL-G). The analysis is still relevant because of the infringement proceedings against Germany by the European Commission based on fragmentary transposition of the EED.
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Some Legal Challenges of Digital Inheritance with Special Regard to Privacy
84-98Views:295Digital inheritance, because of its complexity, cannot be considered uniformly. The elements of digital inheritance which can be considered as property are regulated by the law of succession. The personal elements of the digital inheritance are regulated by the right in memoriam and data protection laws. In the current Hungarian legal system the amendment of Act no. CXII of 2011 on the Right of Informational Self-Determination put the post-mortem privacy principle into regulatory form, in addition to the right to respect for the deceased which provides legal protection against violation of the memory of a deceased person.
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Collective Agreement’s Status in Law
Views:581The collective agreement is a Janus-faced legal phenomenon. From one side it has the nature of a contractual relationship where the parties have the right to determine the content of the contract, also including the choice itself, whether they establish it or not. On the other hand, the collective agreement acts as a legal norm as well. From this aspect its regulations are also obligatory for those persons who were not involved during the set-up process, or even for those who disagrees with some parts of the document. Therefore it is a crucial question in labour law as to how these contracts are handled by law. The Hungarian Labour Code came into force in 2012 contained an approach in which the legislator wanted to empower the legal status of collective agreement. To achieve this goal, in some parts the Act gives the parties the possibility to deviate from the law and to customize the norms in order to make it fit their current relationship. In this paper I examine the nature of the Collective Agreement and show its specialities in the Hungarian legal environment.
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Personal and Organizational Framework for the Activities of the Defence Counsel in Hungary
79-88Views:119In the Hungarian system of criminal procedure, several participants of the proceeding may provide activities aiming at the defence of the defendant (e.g. the prosecutor or even the defendant himself). My dissertation, however, shall focus on the activities of the defender based on delegation or recorded Power of Attorneys given, in consideration of the fact that almost without exception this personal group act as advocates in criminal procedures, furthermore, solely lawyers have the expertise necessary for the defence, and the “equality of arms” principle may only succeed completely through them.
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The Legal Status of Women in the Balkans from the 19th Century to the Present
101-123Views:283One of the most important pieces of legislation in Serbian history was the Serbian Civil Code (SCC) of 1844, which remained in force for more than 100 years. It dates back to the time when the country was still part of the Ottoman Empire and survived the state law regimes of the Principality of Serbia, the Kingdom of Serbia, the Kingdom of Serbs-Croats and Slovenians and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia before being liquidated by socialist Yugoslavia in 1945. From the moment it was created, there had been serious criticism, such as that it was modelled on the Austrian civil code and thus did not correspond to Serbian legal-social relations, and so there was no indication that it would be a durable piece of legislation. In its 100-year history, most of the criticism concerned the discriminatory provisions on women. Mostly, the legal situation of married women was detrimental, as they had no capacity to act, and were represented by their husbands. Their proclaimed equality took place in 1946, but they actually received the same legal status as men in the late 20th century.
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Multilevel System of Fundamental Rights Protection in Practice, in the Light of the Dismissal of Government Officials without Justification
120-141Views:148Today, in the European multi-level and cooperative constitutional area the European Convention on Human Rights, the constitutional value provisions of the EU Treaties together with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, as well as the constitutions of the member states of the EU function as parallel constitutions. The legal remedies offered by international forums by nature are subsidiary, because it is desirable that legal issues of human rights be solved by the states at national level. The obligation of the exhaustion of domestic legal remedies as a procedural precon- dition is needed in order that the national level should have the chance to remedy the violation of human rights within its own legal system.
The present paper focuses on Art. 8 para. (1) of Act LVIII of 2010 on the legal status of government officials, which states that the employer has the right to terminate the contract of goverment officials by two months’ notice period without any justification. The research is of considerable interest because the dismissed officials – who, in my opinion, de facto suffered injury by violation of human rights – were forced to turn to international forums because of the fact that the Hungarian legal system was not able to grant them adequate reparation. Therefore, the examination also evaluates the current level of fundamental rights arbitration and the jurisdiction using fundamental principles in Hungary.
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Basic Trial Rights and Trial Ethics in Criminal Proceedings
32-55Views:194The number of criminal court trials is constantly decreasing, as the domestic legislature has introduced a number of legal institutions aimed at diverting criminal cases from the court system, or avoiding charging. Nevertheless, there will always be crimes, the adjudication of which cannot dispense with impeachment based on direct judicial investigation. The trial is undoubtedly the "highlight" of the criminal proceedings, since it is here that the adversarial process takes place in its entirety, and here the defense counsel and the prosecutor have the opportunity to form opinions on factual and legal issues in each other's personal presence. The amendment of the Criminal Procedure Act naturally raised many questions, such as who in the near future will actually control the evidence taken in court proceedings, and what basic procedural rights should be provided to the participants of the proceedings. In this study, I would like to reflect primarily on these questions, based on some ECtHR decisions.
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Principle of Environmental Integration – Thoughts on the 7th EU Environment Action Programme
31-51Views:185Integration of environmental requirements into other policies is a priority objective of the new, 7th environmental action programme of the EU. Principle of environmental integration was developed by the international environmental policy; it was inserted into environmental policy principles and into provisions of the Founding Treaty at the establishment of the EC environmental policy. The aim of the environmental integration principle harmful environmental effects, thus to serve sustainable development. Objectives of the EU sustainable development and sustainable growth strategies cannot be realized without integration of environmental requirements: integration of economic, social and environmental aspects of development can ensure the establishment of a resource- efficient, competitive economy, free from environmental degradation, improvement of quality of human life, meeting the needs of present and future generations, and preservation of natural resources which serves as the fundament for development of the other two pillars. Environmental integration is a principle provided for in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, binding the decision-makers and legislators of the EU and the Member States; failure of its application might lead to judicial review and annulment of an act.
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Public Procurement Issues in the Field of Environmental Liability
175-188Views:200In public procurement, the principle of responsible management of public funds applies (Section 142 of the Public Procurement Act). This does not mean that only the techniques of fast-acting, quasi-abbreviated announcements or accelerated public procurement procedures are preferred, but on the contrary also direct tenders without general public procurement procedures are possible. The basis for efficient and transparent public expenditure at least are public procurement procedures that adhere to minimum procedural deadlines and create competition, i.e. facilitate the participation of as many bidders as possible. On the other hand, remedying environmental damage caused by third parties requires that the award of appropriate protection and remedial measures to the relevant contractors and the associated compliance with public procurement procedures do not cause delays that could contribute to extreme environmental degradation. In these cases, it is necessary to check whether there is a case of extreme urgency (imminent danger) and whether the award procedure can be omitted in whole or in part. In line with the above considerations, the present study, with reference to the Hungarian and EU regulations for public procurement, as well as comparative law with the inclusion of German and Austrian examples, examines whether the Hungarian legislator has additional leeway to prevent and quickly eliminate urgent or permanent serious environmental damage in accordance with procurement law.