Transformation In Hungarian Law 1989 2006

This collection of studies attempts to summarize the major changes in the Hungarian legal system since 1990. The authors realize that a comprehensive overview of the entire legal system of period would go well beyond the scope of this book, and in fact could be too detailed to interrest prospective readers unfamiliar with the topic. Based on this understanding the book focused on each major branch of law separately (constitutional law, administrative law, criminal law, civil law, etc.), while aiming to describe all major aspects of these changes.

After the collapse of the Berlin wall in 1989 and disintegration of the Soviet Union, scholars focused on the problems of legal transitions within the newly emerging democracies. Two decades on, these states are in 'post-transition' conditions; having undergone and continuing to experience political, economic and constitutional upheavals to varying degrees. Criminal law and processes of criminalisation and decriminalisation are at the heart of these changes, and must be understood in the light of the social transitions. A major influence is the old 'West' - a relationship that has often been more maleficent than it may appear. This book provides an interdisciplinary perspective on this largely unexamined topic.

The last two decades have witnessed an exponential growth in debates on the use of foreign law by courts. Different labels have been attached to the same phenomenon: judges drawing inspiration from outside of their national legal systems for solving purely domestic disputes. By doing so, the judges are said to engage in cross-border judicial dialogues. They are creating a larger, transnational community of judges. This book puts similar claims to test in relation to highest national jurisdictions (supreme and constitutional courts) in Europe today. How often and why do judges choose to draw inspiration from foreign materials in solving domestic cases? The book addresses these questions from both an empirical and a theoretical angle. Empirically, the genuine use of comparative arguments by national highest courts in five European jurisdictions is examined: England and Wales, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. On the basis of comparative discussion of the practice and its national theoretical underpinning in these and partially also in other European systems, an overreaching theoretical framework for the current judicial use of comparative arguments is developed. Drawing on the author's own past judicial experience in a national supreme court, this book is a critical account of judicial engagement with foreign authority in Europe today. The sober middle ground inductively conceptualized and presented in this book provides solid jurisprudential foundations for the ongoing use of comparative arguments by courts as well as its further scholarly discussion.

A comprehensive overview of the field of comparative administrative law that builds on the first edition with many new and revised chapters, additional topics and extended geographical coverage. This Research Handbook’s broad, multi-method approach combines history and social science with more strictly legal analyses. This new edition demonstrates the growth and dynamism of recent efforts – spearheaded by the first edition – to stimulate comparative research in administrative law and public law more generally, reaching across different countries and scholarly disciplines.

This book examines the role, the general framework and the empirical effectiveness of the main alternative dispute resolution tools (administrative appeals, mediation, and ombudsman) in administrative matters, within the broader context of the administrative justice system. The book uses approaches from the fields of law, public administration, public policy and political science to assess the importance of different instruments for alternative dispute resolution, with an emphasis on administrative appeals.

The onset of the 2004 EU enlargement witnessed a number of predictions being made about the approaches, capacity and ability of Central European judges who were soon to join the Union. Optimistic voices, foreshadowing the deep transformative power that Europe was bound to exercise with respect to the judicial mentality and practice in the new Member States, were intertwined with gloomy pictures of post-Communist limited formalism and mechanical jurisprudence that could not be reformed, which were likely to undermine the very foundations of mutual trust and recognition the judicial system of the Union is built upon. Ten years later, this volume revisits these predictions and critically assesses the evolution of Central European judicial mentality, institutions and constitutionality under the influence of the EU membership. Comparatively evaluating the situation in a number of Central European Member States in their socio-legal contexts, notably Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania, the volume offers unique insights into the process of (non) Europeanisation of national legal systems and cultures.

Unlike in other countries of Eastern Europe where the opposition to communism came in the form of single mass movements led by charismatic leaders such as Václav Havel and Lech Wałęsa, in Hungary the opposition was very fragmented, brought together and made effective only by the authoritative, significant but relatively unknown Árpád Göncz, who subsequently became Hungary’s first post-communist president. This book charts the political career of Árpád Göncz, outlining the outstanding contribution he made to Hungary’s transition to democracy. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including archives and interviews with Göncz himself and others, it shows how Göncz, unlike Havel who was a playwright and whose political role was largely symbolic, was a campaigning politician all his life, consistently advocating social democratic, but not communist, values. Imprisoned from 1956 for his participation in the 1956 uprising, Göncz was a highly-effective political operator in the transition period around 1989, and as president wielded real power effectively. As politics in Hungary are again marred by deep division and fragmentation, Göncz’s success in bringing rival groups together is even more pronounced.