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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

  99-121

  Zsolt Tibor Szabó

  Views:

  408

  The 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.

• The Legal Status of the Inventor in the First Hungarian Patent Act

  19-33

  László Papp

  Views:

  97

  The 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.

• A Cutting-Edge” Criminal Procedure? : Some Reflections on the Modernization of Hungarian Criminal Procedure Law

  11-36.

  Mátyás Bencze

  Views:

  264

  The 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

• The Beneficium Novorum in the Light of the Hungarian Procedural Reform Movements of the 19th and 20th Centuries

  28-44

  Kristóf Szivós

  Views:

  120

  The study examines the historical development of the beneficium novorum in the 19^th and 20^th 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.

• Looking for Solutions of the Hungarian Legislation of Public Procurement

  24-46

  Zsolt Pfeffer

  Views:

  109

  The 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.

• The Criminal Provisions of the DDoS Attacks in the United States, Eu- rope and Hungary

  66-83

  Kitti Mezei

  Views:

  318

  The 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.

• Is the New Regulation Justified? Applicability of the New Rules of Self-defense in Case-law

  129-147

  Viktória Deák

  Views:

  257

  In 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.

• The Effect of the Jurisprudence of the ECHR on the Hungarian Criminal Procedure Act

  128-150

  Krisztián Szabó

  Views:

  274

  The 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.

• The Transfer of Contract on the Basis of Statutory Provisions: Novation or Succession?

  7-27

  Ágnes Juhász

  Views:

  191

  In 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.

• Integration of the Hungarian Water Utility Supplier from a Legal Aspect

  144-162

  János Ede Szilágyi

  Views:

  100

  The 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.

• Hungarian Legislation on Unfair Commercial Practices – Critical Comments

  54-67

  Edit Zsuzsanna Tárczy

  Views:

  126

  Directive 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.

• The New Hungarian Act on Irrigation in the Light of a Landscape-Orientated and Land-Use-Based Water Management

  42-66

  János Ede Szilágyi

  Endre Dobos

  Péter Szűcs

  Views:

  381

  The 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.

• Agricultural irrigation in Hungary, with special regards to the water resources levy and agricultural water supply fee

  46-61

  Ágnes Bujdos

  Views:

  165

  The 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.

• Reflections from the Viewpoint of Legal History on the Muslims in Hungary

  11-23

  Gábor Hamza

  Views:

  100

  The 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.

• Some Issues in Treating the Changes of Circumstances under English Law

  25-44

  Ágnes Juhász

  Views:

  195

  All 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.

• Trends, Directions, Legislative Efforts: the Abolition of the Civil Servant Status

  179-195

  Bence Havas

  Zoltán Petrovics

  Views:

  121

  One 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.

• Knowledge of Law in the Hungarian Population Today and a Half Century Ago – A Comparative Analysis based on Kálmán Kulcsár’s Empirical Survey of 1965

  11-28

  György Gajduschek

  Balázs Fekete

  Views:

  205

  Knowledge of law is certainly one component of legal culture. Due to the support of the Hungarian Research Funds (OTKA) the authors of this paper carried out a comprehensive empirical analysis of this issue in Hungary. In doing so they strongly relied on Kálmán Kulcsár’s findings and insights stemming from his pathbreaking studies half a century ago.

  The empirical study was carried out by the Szonda Ipsos Market and Opinion Research Institute in the framework of an omnibus questionnaire survey with a random sample of 1000 people in 2013. Thirteen questions essentially similar to certain questions used by Kulcsár in 1965 (for instance: Have you ever read a bill or an act? Have you ever participated in a judicial process? Who or which body enacts a bill in Hungary?) were posed in order to provide a possibility for the comparison of the actual results and those of Kulcsár.

  We found that the general level of knowledge of law had increased substantially in the past decades. Knowledge related to constitutional law is the prominent example of this growth and it can definitely be coupled with the functioning of the democratic political system in the last 25 years. However, except from constitutional law, the growth of legal knowledge is due almost solely to the increased level of education and not a generally improved legal consciousness of the society.

• Human Rights as Fundamental Sources of Patients’ Rights in Light of the Development of Hungarian and German Laws

  157-168

  János Márk Kiss

  Views:

  235

  Medical practice affects human life and health, which are not just some of the key social values, but actually express the existence of a human being. Therefore, it is a requirement to set the legal standards to guarantee the preservation and respect of human rights during medical treatment. Patients’ rights provide specific types of human rights in the area of patient care. The German legal system grants the preservation of these rights in a contractual framework that cannot be breached. In Hungary, patients’ rights are listed in the Public Health Act. Despite the diverse methods in regulating patients’ rights, the underlying public policy considerations are the same in both systems. The goal of this study is to provide a comparative analysis on the development of the German and the Hungarian regulation of patients’ rights focusing on the consideration of human rights.

• The Responsibility of the State in the Prevention and Management of Environmental Damage with Regard to Spatial Planning

  156-174

  Ilona Agócs

  Views:

  242

  The study aims to examine the constitutional responsibility of the State for environmental damage from a specific new perspective; it analyses its constitutional framework with regard to recent regulatory tools on spatial planning of the contaminated areas. To this end it briefly outlines the history of the remediation of areas falling within the State’s responsibility, its different regulatory and institutional models to date and the extent to which the newly introduced legal instrument in the act on formation and protection and of the built environment of brownfield action areas reflects this quarter-century process.

• The role of lien holder in the judicial execution procedure

  139-158

  Vera Kovács-Hegedűs

  Views:

  217

  Lien is substantially characterized by priority in satisfaction, which is in the spotlight of the execution of the lien. The lien’s function and force as a security interest is determined by the rules of execution. Under Act V of 2013 on the Civil Code, out-of-court execution has become the main rule, however, judicial execution and liquidation proceedings remained available to enforce the lien. Furthermore, in order to protect the purpose of the pledge to serve as a collateral and to provide priority in satisfaction, the lien may also be enforced where the pledge has been seized and offered for sale in the execution proceedings initiated by a person other than the lien holder. In this case, the lien holder may join in the execution proceedings even if his/ her claim against the lienee as debtor is not yet due. otherwise, upon auctioning the pledge, the lien holder’s lien would terminate. The purpose of this study is to identify and address the issues of this specific type of execution that arise during implementation as well as the incompleteness of the applicable laws and regulations.

• Comparison of Enforcement Systems for the Violation of Fundamental Rights of Detainees Stemming from the Condition of Detention in Penitentiaries and the Right to a Fair and Public Hearing within a Reasonable Time

  90-110

  Zoltán Boda

  Views:

  126

  The violation of fundamental rights of detainees stemming from the conditions of detention in penitentiaries and the right to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time raise complex concerns, because in such cases the applicants have to submit a procedure under the Hungarian Prison Act or a lawsuit concerning the violation of certain rights relating to personality under the Hungarian Code of Civil Procedure or the Civil Code. The legal protection is uncertain, because the rules relating to prison conditions meet with rules of civil procedure and civil code rules. Court decisions do not help to find the way out of this incoherency. The questions mentioned in the present article raise serious dogmatic debates, casting doubt on the efficiency of the remedies.

• Recent Developments in Labour Law Liability

  145-155

  Tamás Prugberger

  György Kenderes

  Views:

  151

  This article is about the new labour law regulation (Act 2012/1.) in the field of liability for damages.

• The New Zealand concept of the legal personality of water and its applicability in Hungarian legal order, especially in connection with lake Balaton

  9-23

  János Ede Szilágyi

  Views:

  141

  The present article concentrates on two aspects of the legal personality of water. First, it deals with the national legislation of New Zealand, especially the „Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act 2017”, in which the legislator granted legal personality to the Whanganui River. Second, the article focuses on a Hungarian initiative concerning the establishment of a legal personality for the biggest Hungarian lake, i.e. Lake Balaton. Is it a real alternative to renew the legal protection of the environment in the Hungarian law? The article tries to launch a theoretical and practical dispute on the topic.

• Reconstruction or Abolition of University Autonomy: Tendencies and Proposals During the System-Level Crisis of Higher Education

  170-180

  Zoltán Rónay

  Views:

  115

  The Fourth Amendment to the Fundamental Law of Hungary, together with the subsequent passing of, and the successive amendments made to, the National Higher Education Act have not only restructured the management of higher education institutions but have also introduced legal institutions (Chancellor, Consistorium), which intervene both directly, in terms of fiscal policy, and indirectly, in terms of educational and research policies, in their overall operation and – as these are essentially government appointed persons/bodies, the institutions themselves being left out of the process – their autonomy as well. While this radical reorganization is not without precedent, the possible reasons behind its implementation have not yet been revealed. This study aims to understand these reasons by analyzing and disputing the one and only monograph addressing the question published before these changes had taken place, and attempts to discuss its predictions from the present viewpoint.

• The EU Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) from an Environmental Law Perspective

  63-87

  Orsolya Bányai

  László Fodor

  Views:

  244

  This paper will focus on the 2012/27/EU Energy Efficiency Directive (EED). Since the EED is a rather new legal act, its assessment from an environmental law perspective has been neglected in academic literature. Therefore, the next question automatically arises: does the new directive take steps to improve the EU regulations concerning energy efficiency? The EED undoubtedly took a step forward by providing legally binding frameworks for the reduction of energy consumption (instead of the previous political and non-binding energy efficiency goals) and has done this in an absolute way, which is the most important requirement from an ecological point of view. Beyond the special targets of the EED, there are several specific requirements that may play a significant role in the realisation of the EED’s targets. Among these, for instance the following is highlighted in this paper: establishing energy efficiency obligation schemes or adopting alternative policy measures; the 3% commitment of renovation regarding central government buildings; the obligation of energy audits regarding enterprises that are not small or medium-sized, etc. This paper concludes that, despite a few provisions of the directive meeting the ecological requirements, in reality, the regulation misses theoretical ground.