Search

Search Results

• The Constitutional Obstacles before the Promulgation of the Rome Statute

  45-59

  Marco Pesci

  Views:

  322

  July 17, 1998, can be considered as one of the most important milestones of the international judicial structure: it is the day when the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted by 120 states out of 148. Article 86 of Statute explicitly states that „States Parties shall […] cooperate fully with the Court in its investigation and prosecution of crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court.” As in the case of every international treaty, the principle of pacta sunt servanda enshrined in Article 26 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of the Treaties states applies, which explicitly states that “every treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith.” As has been pointed out by the Permanent Court of International Justice, contracting states must make all the necessary internal measures which are required to fulfil its international obligations rising from a binding treaty. One could ask, why is this quite obvious argument important in the case of Hungary? Well, Hungary has ratified the Statute but still has not implemented it in its internal legislation. This can be considered as a serious constitutional omission, since if the Court would require the cooperation of Hungary – e.g. in the case of an arrest warrant – and it would not be able to fulfil it because of the lack of the internal legal norms, it would be considered as international legal responsibility of Hungary. In this article, I try to explore the reasons behind this omission and outline the possible solutions.

• 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.

• Defences in International Criminal Law

  35-53

  Ferenc Sántha

  Views:

  106

  The Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome on 17 July 1998 and it entered into force on 1 July 2002. The ICC Statute contains rules regarding grounds for excluding criminal responsibility but this list is not exhaustive since other defences are recognized in international (criminal) law. This essay will not examine the special procedural defences and other obstacles of punishability which are explicitly rejected by the ICC Statute but focus on the substantial defences in international law: the lack of responsibility under a certain age; insanity and intoxication; justifiable defence; necessity and duress; mistake; superior orders; belligerent reprisals and military necessity.