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The Basic Thesis of the State Theory of Győző Concha: "Theory of Constitiution"
133-160Views:283Győző Concha’s book “Politika”, published in 1895, is still relevant for the understanding of the theoretical problems in constitutional law. Thus, it is important to analyse the peculiar use of constitutional terms in his theory in order to understand his unique interpretation of the concept of the constitution and its relevance for political and legal philosophy. The methodological goal of the research is to present the meaning of the concepts used by Concha, and to highlight their functional role. It is also an important question as to how Concha’s constitutional theory was incorporated into his political philosophy, and how these concepts are interpreted in today’s political and legal terminology. It is also the paper’s aim to “translate” Concha’s vocabulary and constitutional theory into the language used in 21st century constitutional theories, and to present and evaluate the relevance of his constitutional theory in understanding the current constitutional problems of political communities.
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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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Public Hearing as a Safeguard of Fair Trial in Criminal Proceedings
46-61Views:148The primary aim of my paper is to examine the questions related to the institute of public hearing. As we know, publicity is one of the most important safeguards of fair trial in criminal procedure. In my opinion, it is necessary to examine these procedural questions in a scientific depth in the light of both the case decisions of the High Courts and the practice of the European Court of Human Rights. The study examines one of the important pledges of a fair trial, the effectiveness of the basic principle of publicity in the criminal procedure. It explores the principle from a dogmatic point of view, and also in the light of both the European standards and the regulations currently in force. It mentions the limitation and exclusion of publicity, and the legal consequences of violating publicity in a great detail. Classic legal institutes are shifted into new dimensions by the technical improvements of the modern world and the media broadcasts from courts, and the paper points it out that for the sake of having an undisturbed court hearing and verification, some modifications on certain legal regulations may be justified. The study also mentions the standpoints of legal literature regarding the notion of publicity in detail, and by summarizing them it attempts to define the notion of the given basic principle as per aspects of law science, considering the characteristics of the 21st century. After the establishment of law theory principles, besides introducing the regulation in force and touching upon court practice, my paper analyzes questions that are more and more current, especially due to the reports by the electronic media, which sometimes cannot only disturb the order of the court, but also the procedure of verification. So, after the examination of basic hypotheses and the legal institute, it draws the conclusion that the development of the legal institute justifies the modification of the procedural law in the future, especially in connection with informing the press.
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Is This the Way Labour Law Should Protect the Employee? Review of György Kiss’s New Book
203-212Views:166Our review is about György Kiss's book, its title being Employment Flexibility and the Protection of Employee Status (A Possible Approach to Examining the Content of the Employment Relationship). The work raises the question of the future of labour law regulation, using the results and findings of the past. After describing the roots of Roman law, we can learn about the development of the current form of labour law through the development of the Germanic, Francophone and Anglo-Saxon legal systems. In addition to the historical view, the dogmatic foundations are also outlined in the work, so the content processing of the employment contract takes place on several levels before the author discusses the labour law applicability of the relational contract theory he raises. The description of all these bases makes the work suitable for those interested in labour law to better understand the contractual theories of different legal systems. We want to give an insight into this in the review, so that in addition to presenting the work, our own personal views and opinions will also appear.
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Luxembourg v Strasbourg – Legal Impediments in the Process of the Accession of the EU to the ECHR
101-119Views:123The accession of the European Union (EU) to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has been on the agenda of the EU for long. Although the Lisbon Treaty settles this question in theory by obliging the EU to accede, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) resorted to its rights laid down in the Treaties and published its Opinion 2/13 on the matter by the full Court. This opinion scrutinizes the draft document concerning accession. According to the opinion the EU cannot accede to the ECHR in the present form because the draft document is not in compliance with the special characteristics and features of EU law, therefore it would require the amendment or reorganisation of the whole EU legal system. By this judgement the ECJ outlines the legal impediments in the way of the accession. The main objective of our article – after summarizing the brief history and legal framework of the accession – is to present and evaluate the critical elements of accession determined by the ECJ and predict the decision’s possible consequences.
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Legal Theory Bases and the Place of Corporate Tax in Tax Policy
153-179Views:208Corporate tax is basically aimed at taxing the income from the business activities of companies (and other enterprises, legal entities). The general characteristics of this type of tax, legal theories of its application, political and economic approaches, as well as the main legislative and enforcement problems can be examined. Each country has different regulations and approaches, but the main features are the same. Accordingly, the study discusses the place, role and general characteristics of corporate tax in tax policy, primarily from a legal point of view, also addressing some economic issues and the relationship between dividend tax and corporate tax.
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Some Labour Law Aspects of Psychological Contract Theory
50-69Views:204The aim of this paper is to present the central-topics of psychological contract theory, focusing on the relevant labour law contexts. The main research method used is an examination of relevant studies, articles and monographs on the topic, a secondary analysis of empirical research data systematically compiled by the authors, and an exploration of the main labour law aspects and contexts. The difference between an employment contract and a psychological contract is that while the former is a written, legally binding contract, the latter is a theoretical, abstract construct that contains the mutual and implicit expectations of the parties. A psychological contract therefore falls into the category of "extra-legal" contracts, but in certain cases, especially in the event of breach of contract, it may have legal relevance.
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Determining the Period of Criminal Legal Limitation
99-113Views:295In my essay I examine the statutes of limitation in criminal law. Firstly, I give a general description of limitation, of its position in the Criminal Code and of its legal theory. Secondly, I review the legal history of limitation demonstrating the system of limitation in our first criminal code. After that, I outline the regulations concerning the period of limitation and then describe the way limitation is enforced in the statute of criminal procedure. Finally, I draw the conclusions of my essay in the form of a proposition de lege ferenda.
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Rule of Law – Active State: Reconstructing the Conception of the Rule of Law in Zoltán Magyary’s Theory
9-26Views:170Zoltán Magyary was an internationally recognised Hungarian professor of law who carried out research in modern theories of administration and state theories. Defending the values of the rule of law and taking action against the anomalies of legal formalism were among his major scientific goals. According to him, one of the most important functions of a legal system is the protection of human rights, therefore he accepted the view that courts must have the authority to review administrative decisions. At the same time, he stated that the effective and productive functioning of administrative institutions and the executive power is a priority in a legal system. Due to the fact that he did not provide a complete analysis of the correlation between the rule of law and the effective functioning of administrative institutions, he opened the possibility for posterity to give various and different interpretations of the issue.
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Book Review: Sipka Péter: Employer’s Liability in Theory and Practice
171-178Views:77Péter Sipka’s book was published in 2021 by HVG-ORAC under the title “Employer’s Liability in Theory and Practice”. On the one hand the author analyses the system of liability in depth, on the other hand the author widely describes the court decisions. Thanks to the monograph the reader can get to know the legal institution of employer’s liability for damage to employee’s health in its complexity. In addition to the examination of labor law, the connections between occupational safety and social security are also described.
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Questions of divisions of powers in the 21st century after the adoption of the new Fundamental Law of Hungary
24-37Views:301The question of division of state powers is a crucial part of constitutional law determining how state organs work (or should work) in theory and in practice. After the adoption of the new Fundamental Law of Hungary, there are some modifications in the Hungarian constitutional system, including the division of powers as well. In this study we examine the original model of “3 branches of power – 1-1 function” as a starting point, and the other factors and branches which can modify the original model. In the study we try to focus to the examples of the former and present Hungarian legal system as certain proves of our theory about the new frameworks of division of powers in Hungary. In the end of this study we also examine, as an indirect argumentation, the opposite side of the separation of powers, i.e. concentration of powers.
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The One Who Wanted Online Courts Before the Coronavirus: Review of Richard Susskind's New Book "Online Courts and the Future of Justice"
192-200Views:308In November 2019 Richard Susskind, who is relatively known and popular in Hungary as well, published his new book “Online courts and the future of justice” issued by Oxford University Press. The author argued rather radically for the necessity of the change of legal services in his previous books before and he has maintained this approach. This time Susskind argues for the transformation of the century-old court systems giving alternative ideas about what sort of methods and ways in which we should transform our courts in order to make judicial services available for every person indeed. As the title suggests, the core concept of the book is the realization of online courts, which has slowly become a reality amid the pandemic caused by the coronavirus. Thus, the concept of Susskind may be called even fatidical from this perspective.
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Environmental Tax Harmonisation and Market-Oriented Legal Regulation in the Light of the CJEU Practice
95-117Views:181The subject of the present paper is the explanation and justification of environmental taxes in general terms and, in particular, the assessment of the recent european trends as well as the examination of the practice of the EU Court of Justice followed in this field. The paper considers ecotaxes as the means of fiscal policy that can be put into the service of green growth. For the time being, the enforcement of ecological policy is restricted in many aspects within the EU framework, being unilaterally subordinated to the requirement of free competition. For this reason, the EU law mechanisms of adjustment may get stuck in cases where intervention is not necessary in order to have more but, on the contrary, to have less freedom of market. Since it can be considered as obvious from the perspective of thermodynamic restraints that market imperfections cannot be precluded, the possible aim of intervention is certainly not the reconstruction of free trade, but the suspension of the laws of market. The political and legal basis for this is still missing in the European Union both in theory and practice what can be seen as a serious problem.
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The General Theory of the State and the Relativity of the Force of Law – Comment on the Theory of Georg Jellinek
53-72Views:156This paper makes an in-depth examination of the theory established by Georg Jellinek who – extending the perspective of the jurisprudence of state law based on legal methods – was concerned with issues of public law within the frames of general theory of the state. The author will demonstrate the claim that the special concepts of Jellinek’s general and descriptive theory – like the „presupposition of factual validity” or the idea of the „state’s self-obligation to law” – are the results of Jellinek’s idea that there were no alternatives to the institutional system of the constitutional monarchy.
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Work of Costantino Mortati in the Field of Public Law
23-41Views:96The aim of my article is to present an overview of certain stages of Costantino Mortati’s scientific work (Constitutional Court’s judge and professor of law) on the basis of Italian bibliography. His most popular work, entitled “the Constitution in material sense” (1940) conforms to problems and methodology of Italian constitutional law, while it reflects to contemporary schools of European jurisprudence and changes of institutions and theories of modern state. Behind Mortati’s theories about the State and the Constitution, the Italian liberal state regarded as heritage of risor- gimento, and the symptoms of its crises, birth and fall of the totalitarian state and the fundamental public law-aspects of the democratic and republic state can be found.
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Back-Door Electronic Monitoring in Hungary: Theory and Practice of Reintegrative Surveillance
30-42Views:321With the development of technology many new legal institutions were regulated in the criminal justice systems. Electronic monitoring is one of those, which from the Hungarian perspective first appeared in the form of home detention in criminal procedure law. Later on, in 2015 the technology of electronic monitoring was implemented in prison law as the institution of reintegrative surveillance. The regulation is basically appropriate and according to the experiences could be seen as effective. However, there are some related theoretical questions which need to be answered. For example, the question of widening the potential application of reintegrative surveillance, or the relation between reintegrative surveillance and imprisonment or conditional release. Answering these questions is important as presumably the technological development won’t stop on this level, thus we can expect the widening of electronic monitoring in Hungary as well.