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• Additional Remarks on the Question of Civil Service Law as a Branch of Law

  120-133

  István Horváth

  Attila Kun

  Zoltán Petrovics

  Views:

  482

  The study focuses on the relationship between civil service law and labour law. In Hungary, there have been significant changes in the last decade regarding the regulation of civil service law. The types of the civil service legal relationships have increased, the forums and procedural rules for adjudicating civil service law related disputes have changed, and the number of public employees providing public services has rapidly decreased. This is of particular importance because the existence of these branches of the law is determined by legislation as well. The study concludes that the ability of civil service law to become an independent branch of law will be determined not by 'internal' developments but by legislative ambitions.

• The Problem of Defining Criminal Norms Precisely. The „Clarity of Norms” Doctrine in the Decisions of the Hungarian Constitutional Court and in Judicial Practice

  37-59

  Krisztina Ficsor

  Views:

  358

  The principles of legality in criminal law determine numerous requirements both for the legislator creating criminal statutes and for judges as well who decide criminal cases. One of the most important demands of legality is the principle of maximum certainty according to which the state must establish a system of criminal law in which the wording of the statutes are clear, precise and understandable for the citizens; and judges are able to interpret criminal rules without making arbitrary decisions. In the Hungarian legal system the demands of maximum certainty are represented by the principle of nullum crimen sine lege. This principle is called the „clarity of norms” doctrine in the practice of the Constitutional Court of Hungary (HCC) which is entitled to strike down criminal statutes which do not meet its requirements. The aim of this paper is to argue for the claim that the „clarity of norms doctrine” and the concept of certainty in criminal law is based mostly on considerations about the plain meaning of words and texts and lack a coherent theoretical background in the decisions of the HCC and in judicial practice as well. The author offers a more complex and coherent conception of certainty stating that its requirements relate not only to linguistic considerations but also to thinking over the moral and political values of criminal law as well.

• The Right to Maintain Contact within the Context of Fundamental and Personality Rights

  Anna Szendrői

  Views:

  682

  It is self-evident that parents play an irreplaceable role in the lives of their children, influencing the child's physical, mental, and emotional well-being and behavior. It is therefore necessary that children maintain personal relations and direct contact with each parent, even if the marriage of his/her parents is permanently and irreparably damaged. The right to contact, which has a strong legal foundation in international conventions, is traditionally described as a right of the child, despite the fact that contact between parent and child is both a right and obligation of mothers, fathers and children. The right to contact is a Janus-faced, complex legal institution: although it is largely based on the fundamental right to private and family life guaranteed by constitutional norms, it plays a significant role in private law disputes as well. The aim of this article is to present the place of the right to contact within the Hungarian legal regime, emphasizing the enforcement of this right in the field of protection of basic and personality rights.

• Legal–Sociological Analysis of a Scottish Judicial Decision

  88-104

  Zsolt Nagy

  Views:

  124

  In this essay I have attempted to show the Scottish tradition of criminal law and attitudes of legal profession and the whole Scottish society about the crimes trough one case. This criminal case was held before the Scottish criminal appeal court in 1989, where for the first time, a man could be guilty under the Scottish law of raping his wife while the couple lived together. This was a point that could show the flexibility of Scottish law while the english law was either unwilling or unable to make a change.

  This case shows us that the judges in Scotland claim to represent the social attitudes through legal devices but this representation is not almost uncountable because the courts attempt to operate within the basically conservative traditions. Parallel of the above mentioned the courts try to use the alternative histories of law and the voices of practical lawyers, legal doctrines through the conflicting interpretations in order to make right decisions.