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Towards a European Legal Scholarship. Recommendations of the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat) on the Development of Education and Research
54-61Views:101The German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat) in 2012 published its study „Perspectives of Legal Scholarship in Germany. Current Situation, Analyses, Recommendations”. The recommendations are preceded by empirical and quantitative descriptions that provide information on the current situation of legal study and research in Germany. The document emphasizes the importance of cooperation between theoretical and practical part of the legal education. The report considers that students should acquire the ability of critical approach to legal prac- tice instead of memorising the substantive legal rules.
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The Basic Regulatory Issues of Agricultural Application of Precision Genome Editing and the Precautionary Principle
42-64Views:263The rapidly developing gene manipulation techniques (more recently „gene editing”) have long been controversial, which is reflected in the evolution of legal regulation in Europe. Hungaryʼs Fundamental Law (Art. XX.) clearly states that Hungarian agriculture desires to remain free from genetically modified organisms. According to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA resolution, 2017), the results of the new techniques (without transgenic implantation) are not regarded as GMOs (by the proper application of the genetic engineering law), these new techniques are not governed by the provisions of the Fundamental Law. Recently, a lawsuit was filed before the Court of Justice of the European Union in which the main question was whether GMOs should be considered the result of new techniques (if not, they do not need to be licensed). In the light of a detailed analysis of the precautionary principle, the study examines the question of whether genetic engineering or its results cover the scope of the legislation. According to the author, this question (as long as the revision of the regulation is not on the agenda) is not for the genetic technologists and plant breeders, but for the lawyers to decide. The conclusion of the study is that genetic engineering, respectively its results are subject to the regulation.
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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
11-28Views:201Knowledge 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.
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Is the Implementation of Home Office Legally Feasible? The Criteria for Home Office and its Framework Within Employment Law
59-82Views:1130The year of 2020 was the challenge of “home office”. Although, the publicity uses the term of “home office” as the legal construction of working from home, this approach is misleading. Moreover, the Hungarian Labour Code does not contain any regulation about “home office”, while this legal source embraces two other methods in connection to work from home. These legal institutes are the teleworking and the legal relationship of outworkers. The problem with the aforementioned legal institutes is that the parties must take into account several rules and must apply these solutions regularly, on a permanent basis. However according to the legal literature, the “home office” is created by the economic and human resource management practice of the employers, where they intend to employ the workers mainly at home irregularly, on an ad-hoc basis. At the same time, “home office” does not have a legal framework in the Hungarian Labour Code, therefore the legal literature has been trying to find a real solution for this employment method in the general norms of the Labour Code. In the following article we are going to use the home office definition of the literatures and highlight the background legal institutes and concepts of this working method. Although we are going to set our opinion about which legal institute may be applicable in this sense, in the conclusion we are going to emphasise that legislation and rules regarding “home office” are indispensable.
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Problems of textual empiricism
126-139Views:111In this paper the authors make some critical comments on Blutman László’s legal methodology. They argue for the claim that legal cases cannot be solved by applying the methods of natural sciences. Law is an interpretive social practice, therefore legal texts can have more than one equally justifiable interpretation which can be in conflict with each other. Correct legal decisions, especially in hard cases, are the result of resorting to the justifying principles and purposes of law and cannot be achieved by using ‘textual empiricism’ as a legal methodology.
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A Bécsi Vételi Egyezmény Tanácsadó Testületének a vevő megvizsgálási és értesítési kötelezettségének határidejével, az általános szerződési feltételekkel, valamint a kamattal kapcsolatos véleményei és a nemzeti bíróságok gyakorlata
67-78Views:494A standardizációnak a gazdasági hatékonyság szempontjából egy globális világban óriási jelentősége van. Ez igaz a jogtudomány területére is, és főleg a nemzetközi kereskedelmi jogra. Ugyanakkor, nemzetközi jellege ellenére, ezen a jogterületen is meglepően kevés olyan mintatörvény vagy nemzetközi egyezmény született, amelyek megpróbálták volna egységesíteni az ide vonatkozó anyagi jogot. Ezek közül a legfontosabb az Egyesült Nemzeteknek az áruk nemzetközi adásvételi szerződéseiről szóló, Bécsben, az 1980. évi április hó 11. napján kelt Egyezménye (a továbbiakban: Egyezmény), melyet Magyarországon az 1987. évi 20. törvényerejű rendelet hirdetett ki. Az Egyezményt eddig 89 állam ratifikálta, ami jelentős sikernek számít.
A gyakorlatban a legnagyobb problémát egy ilyen jellegű egyezménynél az egyes rendelkezések egységes értelmezése és alkalmazása jelenti. Az Egyezmény 7. cikkének (1) bekezdése foglalkozik az egységes alkalmazás követelményével, amit némelyek úgy értelmeznek, hogy a bíróságoknak és választottbíróságoknak az Egyezmény alkalmazása során precedensként figyelembe kell venniük más nemzeti bíróságok korábbi döntéseit. Ez az álláspont annyiban problematikus, hogy a precedens rendszer a bíróságok közötti hierarchián alapszik, és ebben az esetben az egyes nemzeti bíróságok vagy választottbíróságok között ilyen nem létezik. Sajnos a szerződést kidolgozó Nemzetközi Kereskedelmi Jogi Bizottság (UNCITRAL) nem foglalkozik az Egyezmény gyakorlati alkalmazása során felmerülő kérdések megválaszolásával. Mivel egyre több kérdés merült fel az utóbbi évtizedekben, 2001-ben magánkezdeményezésre, elismert nemzetközi szakértők, jogtudósok létrehozták az Egyezmény Tanácsadó Testületét (CISG Advisory Council). A Testület feladatának tekinti az Egyezmény egységes értelmezésének elősegítését, és e célból tanácsadó testületi véleményeket fogalmaz meg. A gyakorlatban ezek a vélemények elősegíthetik az Egyezmény világszerte egységes alkalmazását, habár semmiféle kötőerővel sem bírnak.
Ugyanakkor, mivel ilyen sok különböző jogrendszerben alkalmazzák, érdemes folyamatosan nyomon követni, hogy az egyes nemzeti bíróságok az Egyezmény egyes rendelkezéseit hogyan értelmezik a gyakorlatban, és hogy figyelembe veszik-e a Tanácsadó Testület véleményeit. A jogegységesítés folyamata ugyanis nem áll meg az Egyezmény elfogadásával, hanem a joggyakorlat közös mederben tartására is kiterjed, ennek pedig a legjobb módja a folyamatos „kommunikáció” biztosítása a bíróságok között, azaz az egyes nemzeti bíróságok ítéleteinek az elérhetővé tétele, elemzése. Ezt a feladatot szeretné betölteni a jelen tanulmány is, amely a különböző nemzeti bíróságoknak az utóbbi néhány évben született döntéseit, valamint az Egyezmény Tanácsadó Testületének véleményeit vizsgálja három témakörben: a vevő megvizsgálási és értesítési kötelezettségének határideje, az általános szerződési feltételek, valamint a kamat kérdése.
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Cognitive Sciences and Judicial Decision-Making
109-132Views:423Nowadays, judges are expected not just to administer justice, but to have skills and abilities to realize and be aware of standards and laws which can be discovered and analysed by the so- called cognitive sciences. In case we accept that “judges are human beings as well”, we must also assume that their minds and decision-making processes are subject to generally accepted scientific facts. However, cognitive sciences are less known in Hungary, and by using their fruitful results in legal procedures (e. g. in court trials) a greater level of objectivity can be achieved in adjudication which can lead to more accurate judicial decisions.
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Quantum Mechanics and Law. What Does the Failure of Environmental Regulation Teach Us?
60-82Views:219The article first of all holds that environmental regulation has failed. This is because it is too weak to prevent the overstepping of ecological boundaries by humanity. This legal regulation reflects that human behavior is psychopathological. This collective mental illness may originate from false self-identification. Therefore, the author reviews the outcomes of modern natural sciences, such as quantum physics, cosmology, and non-local consciousness research. These results give sufficient support to argue, despite the traditional paradigm of materialism, that some aspects of consciousness are not limited by the space-time continuum. Moreover, all consciousness, regardless of its physical manifestations, is part of the universal Consciousness. From these scientific results, in line with ancient scriptures, an Eternal Order has evolved, which can be described at least by four fundamental and universal truths. This Eternal Order should be taken into account by positive law, if humanity wants to reach fulfillment within the ecological limits of the Earth. -
Symbolic Legislation in Criminal Law
173-189Views:246The study makes efforts to analyse the concept of symbolic legislation, particularly the question of the symbolic criminal law. In the first part of the paper, the author discusses the issues of international (German) literature which relates to the problem of symbolic criminal law. The second part contains the Hungarian theoretical standpoints from which the author draws the conclusion that the concept of symbolic criminal law can be interpreted in multiple ways. Symbolic criminal law is described by some scholars as a critique of the legislature, however according to other opinions – which are the focus of this essay – the concept of symbolic criminal law has a positive meaning which includes the viewpoint that the legislator tries to turn the attention of society to the obligation of saving the general ethical values, and on the other side, it emphasizes the high-priority values set by the legislator in actual social-political situations