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The Judicial Protection of the Basic Structure of the Constitution: the Practice of Judicial Review of Constitutional Amendments in India
132-148Views:125One of the rare but more prominent cases of judicial protection of the existing constitution is the revision of constitutional amendments. From among courts that review amendments, this study presents India’s Supreme Court’s practice, which is regarded as a model. India’s constitution does not contain any unamendable provisions or explicit authorization for judicial control over constitutional amendments, yet the court reviews constitutional amendments on grounds of protecting the constitution’s basic structure. India’s Supreme Court’s practice is a typical example of a court imposing an implicit limitation upon constitutional amendments. Therefore, before analyzing the basic structure doctrine, the study briefly examines the nature of the implicit limitations of constitutional amendments and some issues that may arise in their justification.
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Formalism in Judicial Practice: Theoretical Background of Formalist Judicial Reasoning
151-157Views:142Review on Ficsor Krisztina's book, the title is Formalism on Judicial Practice. Theoretical Background of Formalist Judicial Reasoning. (Gondolat Kiadó, Budapest, 2015.)
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Effective and Actual? Analysis of Employment-Related Directives in the Legal Practice of the Curia of Hungary Regarding the Enforcement of Workers’ Rights
193-216Views:209In view of the special nature of the employment relationship, subordination of the parties results in a weaker legal position on the employees’ side. Certain guarantees of protection are absolutely necessary to compensate for this asymmetry, thus, among other things, the effectiveness of employees’ enforcement plays a key role. This is why our research seeks to answer the question whether some crucial employment-related directives of the European Union, as well as the broader European Union legal corpus also including legal practice. Furthermore we try to find the answer to the question that, how do these legal sources appear in the domestic legal practice, primarily in the relevant judgments of the Curia of Hungary, and the extent to which these references facilitate the effective enforcement of the workers’ rights.
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Victim protection or real probation? Reversed burden of proof in employment discrimination cases in the Hungarian legal practice
123-138Views:298This paper emphasizes one of the most important questions of equal treatment that is the reversed burden of proof and aspects of the special sharing of burden of proof. The hypothesis of the paper is the following: although the Hungarian regulation follows the relevant directives of the European Union properly, the legal practice does not focus on victim protection to the expected level. The legal practice of the Equal Treatment Authority and the Supreme Court (Curia) of Hungary are both analysed, therefore the different approaches can be confronted. The paper provides de lege ferenda proposals mainly in connection with the unification of the Hungarian judicial practice.
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The Problem of Defining Criminal Norms Precisely. The „Clarity of Norms” Doctrine in the Decisions of the Hungarian Constitutional Court and in Judicial Practice
37-59Views:328The 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.
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Opinion or statement of fact?
48-68Views:254Press correction is a special way to defend personality rights on the basis of civil law. Its main objective is that if someone states or rumours a false fact or makes a fact appear untrue about a person in a given publication, the affected person has the right to submit his claim – as soon as possible – in order to have a rectifying communication be given out in the particular publication showing which part of the injurious publication states false, unfounded facts or makes a fact appear untrue and what is the reality. If the publisher does not satisfy its duty to correct the injurious publication voluntarily, the affected person – in a short period – has the right to enforce his claim for press correction in an accelerated judicial procedure which allows only restricted production of evidence.
The most frequent question of the press correctional lawsuits is whether the content of the publication turns out to be a statement of fact or an opinion. The opinion, assessment, critique and debates about society, politics or art cannot serve as a basis for press correction. The statement of fact is a declaration about a given momentum of reality, the assertion or rumour that something has happened in a certain way or that something really exists. In opposition to the statement of fact, the opinion expresses a value judgement or critique, and false facts cannot be concluded from it even indirectly. It is hard to define on an objective basis if a declaration is a statement of fact or an opinion. As life creates a wide range of various situations, the developing legal interpretation by the judicial practice has a great impact especially as regards the distinction between a statement of fact and an opinion, the interpretation of the publication or the determination of the content and form of the press correction.
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Hungarian legislative changes induced by the case-law of European Court of Human Rights
109-122Views:147Indisputably, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has an effect on national legal systems. In this study I examine the type of this effect in the Hungarian legal system through the case law of the year 2014, and as an outcome, I would like to demonstrate that the ECtHR has both direct and indirect impacts on the national legislation in Hungary. As a result of the judgments’ direct impact, changes are made in the national legislation, meanwhile the indirect impact can only be detected in the decisions of the Hungarian Constitutional Court or domestic courts. Obviously, the direct impact is the most significant and most noticeable, however, the significance of indirect impact has been gradually increasing in the recent period. Based on this idea, I would like to point out that both effects are present in the Hungarian legislation, and seem to show an increasing trend, although the judicial bodies mean an exception in this practice. Nonetheless, according to the European practice, the judicial bodies will most likely refer to the international norm and the case law of the ECtHR in the near future.
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Collision of Judicial Opinions in the Practice of the Curia
Views:34This article examines the 2/2022 PJE Unity Decision of the Curia from the perspective of divergent theoretical and dogmatical views expressed in minority opinions. The case study compares the dissenting opinions and the majority opinion of the judges and aims at demonstrating the fact that theoretical disagreement between judges has a huge impact on legal practice and on the issue of how judges decide cases. The hypothesis of the article is that – in hard legal cases – the reason for the differing opinions is the different theoretical convictions of judges. It seems evident that two legal practitioners, who have different views on cardinal issues of law, such as the concept or the purpose of law, interpret legal norms differently. Using the method of qualitative case analysis, the article analyses the arguments appearing in the justification of the decision.
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The Effects of Anthropological Concept of the Legislator on the Interpretation of Law – The Conclusions of a Hungarian Research
73-84Views:93The paper tries to answer the question whether the principle of ’presumption of innocence’ is applied appropriately and consistently in the practice of Hungarian judges. In 2010 we studied the judicial activity of a chosen number of Hungarian judges by analyzing the text of roughly 300 judgements of Hungarian courts and by carrying out an on-line survey among Hungarian judges. As a primary result we could identify some major deficiencies concerning the application of the principle. The other lesson we learnt from the research is that serious principles play their part only if the legislator at the drafting of the law takes the actual knowledge and skills of the law applier into account.
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Likeness of Police Officers: Freedom of the Press and the Right to Facial Likeness at the Crossroads of Civil and Fundamental Rights
110-128Views:162The Constitutional Court of Hungary, proceeding in its new competence regarding the „real” constitutional complaint obtained from 1 January 2012, is allowed to adjudicate the motions initiated against concrete judicial decisions which are deemed to be contrary to the Fundamental Law of Hungary. Within this procedure the Constitutional Court places the protection of the freedom of expression and freedom of the press above the protection of personality rights. The Court consistently annuls judicial decisions that declare infringement of personality rights on grounds that a press agency published recognizable facial likeness of police officers being on duty during demonstrations. The present paper analyses the course during which the Constitutional Court does enforce the constitutional requirements elaborated in its former practice and, thereby, repeals the ordinary courts’ decisions if those favour the personality rights of police officers over the freedom of the press.
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Circumstances Affecting the Degree of Restitution in the Jurisprudence of Labour Law
192-208Views:96The study examines the dogmatics of the legal institution of restitution applicable in the case of infringements of personality rights in labour law, as well as looking at the functions determining the sanctions in the international and domestic legal environment. It classifies states based on the effect wished to be triggered with the legal institution as well as regarding the circumstances to be considered. It determines the governing factual elements and circumstances with regards to the degree of the institution of restitution. It projects the standpoints of special literature to the practice. It analyses and classifies trivial cases in the light of judicial case law.
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Central Issues of the Application of EU Law in the Recent Case Law of the Hungarian Constitutional Court
161-174Views:105The present article examines the recent case law of the Hungarian Constitutional Court as regards the constitutional framework and the judicial practice of the application of EU law. After a short overview of the early precedents, the article focuses on the case law subsequent to the adoption of the new Fundamental Law in 2012. In the recent decisions the need for cooperation with the EU Court of Justice is of special importance so the article reflects on this issue as well. The first part scrutinizes the case law concerning the constitutional limitations and control measures of the application of EU law, including the landmark decision of 22/2016 (XII. 5.). The second part focuses on the decisions delivered in constitutional complaint proceedings, which determine the constitutional requirements of the preliminary rulings procedure and the judicial obligation to give a reasoned decision.
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The Transfer of Contract on the Basis of Statutory Provisions: Novation or Succession?
7-27Views:194In 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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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:212Knowledge 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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The relationship between distraint in real estate and real estate registration – with special regard to the legal effects of registering and recording certain rights and legally significant facts
137-156Views:315The subject of the study is the realization of real estate, which is not examined in the traditional way but within the scope of the implementing law, but as a legal institution affecting several jurisdictions, focusing on the ownership of the auction buyer. In addition to the method of obtaining ownership based on the official auction, it analyzes in detail the possibilities of obtaining from the non-owner in the official auction and in the light of the judicial practice, the legal effects of registering the enforcement right and the note are taken into account.