On 24 September 2016, a terrorist act, which had never happened before in Hungary, was committed in Budapest. The perpetrator wanted to kill two police officers on duty in a premeditated bombing. The study presents one element of forensic thinking, the thinking in versions, based on the assassination attempt that came to be known as the Teréz Boulevard bombing. In addition to describing the material facts of the crime and the main investigative measures, the author places the main emphasis on the versions set up during the investigation and shows what roles each version played in the investigation.
Pursuant to the First World War, Romania's territory increased, and thus it inherited a complex social, economic, and legal environment different from that of the predecessor states. The Romanian state's response to these challenges is to be found in the political goal of building a homogeneous nation-state. This political agenda has had an impact on all areas of law, not only on legislation but also on the application of the law. The use of essentially ethnically neutral legal instruments of criminal law for state policy purposes can also be seen as an element of exclusionary nationality policy. The Romanian state's actions have thus not only failed to resolve existing internal tensions but have also made the relations between the majority and minorities, as well as the possibility of consolidation impossible for the past century.
In the beginning of the year 1837, the hunt started to catch Jóska Sobri, the famous Hungarian outlaw, and his gang. The then palatine ordered military forces to track them down and promised high reward for capturing them. The outlaw gang was hiding in Bakony Forest and had little chance against the soldiers. Not even Sobri and his closest fellow gang members could slip through the territory encircled by the authorities in Tolna County, close to Lápafő, on 17 February 1837. In the gunfight, Sobri has most probably died, but this has never been proven. He disappeared, and the myth was born in outlaw folklore, according to which he is alive even nowadays. Recently, a movie has been produced about his life, and there is also an adventure park in Bakony Forest named after him.
In September 1989, a four-year-old girl, Anikó O., disappeared from a flat-house in Komló. The authorities were searching her for three days. On the fourth day, her stabbed body was found in one of the basement storerooms of the flat-house. The systematic, thorough investigation brought success after one week. The authorities identified the perpetrator, who lived in the flat-house. She also made a full confession. Besides, many hard evidence and expert opinion supported her guilt. The court did not have any doubt, and the punishment was severe.
In my article, I deal with the prohibition of customary law and analogy to the detriment of the perpetrator. Both mentioned prohibitions arise from the principle of legality. The starting point of the analysis is a decision of the Hungarian Supreme Court in 1898 dealing with the criminal offence of theft related to electricity. I presented examples of the extensive and then of the restrictive interpretation by Hungarian criminal courts. My conclusion is that the principle of legality may obviously infringe, for example, criminal liability extended by analogy. However, an overly restrictive interpretation must also be avoided, as this could threaten to violate the state's obligation for criminalization.
The study examines the role of medical records (visum repertum) in three criminal proceedings initiated for infanticides in Békés County. The expert opinions were written in accordance with the provisions of decrees and with the regulations of the medical profession. The prosecution and the defence based their arguments on the expert opinions, and the court accepted, in every instance, the forensic medical expert's position. In one case, the body of the infant was not found, wherefore the woman was convicted for adultery, on the basis of the medical examination proving childbirth (1823). In the second case, a preterm birth occurred, so the widow was punished for concealing her pregnancy (1847). In the third case, only the infant's fatal bleeding could be proven, but the intent to cause injury could not; consequently, the girl was found guilty in wrongful death caused by negligence (1834).
"The case known in the public discourse as the Roma murders was a series of attacks on Roma committed with a distinctly anti-Gypsy, racist motive by Árpád Kiss, István Kiss, Zsolt Pető, and István Csontos – the latter having joined them later – between July 2008 and August 2009. The perpetrators had previously committed a gun robbery in Besenyszög and then carried out firearm and Molotov cocktail attacks on Gypsies in a total of nine settlements across five counties, killing a total of six people. The investigation revealed that several of the offenders were related to the skinhead community in Debrecen, and their motive was retaliation for crimes related to gypsies and incitement of anti-Gypsy sentiments among the population. They were arrested on 21 August 2009, in a nightclub in Debrecen, where two of the perpetrators worked as bouncers. Their criminal proceedings began on 25 March 2011, and the verdict was pronounced on 6 August 2013. The first-, second-, and third-degree defendants were sentenced to actual life imprisonment, while the fourth-order defendant was sentenced to 13 years in prison, of which he could not be released on parole, so he is expected to be released at the end of August 2022. The publication presents the events, the process of the investigation, the arrest, and the perpetrators. The author seeks to find motivation for the events and broader social aspects."
On 9 May 2002, eight people were killed in a bank robbery in Erste Bank's branch in Mór. The serious crime has put tremendous pressure on the public to find the perpetrators as soon as possible. About a month and a half after the crime had been committed, Ede Kaiser and László Hajdú were arrested on 24 July 2002 – they were reasonably suspected of committing the bank robbery, according to the police. Based on the evidence gathered, they were charged in December 2003 and convicted a year later. In 2007, however, new evidence emerged, the weapons used in the crime were found and led to the real perpetrators. The innocent convict was acquitted in November 2009 in a retrial. The study shows what factors may have led to the wrong judgment. Thus, it covers the dangers of hot pursuit and the benefits of raster investigation, which could have identified the real perpetrators much sooner.
Attorney Elemér Óvári was a legendary figure of Cluj in the first half of the 20th century. His professional, civic organizing activity and his magistral skills of organizing pranks were legendary in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and later in Romania. The salon, run with his wife, Olga Purjesz, was a prominent centre of cultural life in Cluj. This study seeks to reconstruct the life of Elemér Óvári and the tragic events that took place in October 1944 in Cluj, in the context of the Soviet army's invasion and of the efforts to protect the city from the fighting.
The present study is intended to illustrate the activities of a serial killer who committed a series of crimes in a small village. During the investigation, the police interrogated several suspected candidates but excluded them from the list of potential perpetrators due to lack of motive. Finally, by narrowing down the investigation to include psychiatric patients, the perpetrator, who was member of an aggressive religious sect, was identified. The serial killer testified that he had planned to commit further murders and showed no remorse at all, but instead he regretted killing so few unbelievers.
The case of Simek Kitty garnered a lot of interest in the media between 2002 and 2005. The fourteen-year-old girl, who endured her stepfather's physical, verbal, and sexual abuse for ten years, one day shot the aggressive man with his own weapon. Although the court sentenced the young girl for her deed, the President of the Republic gave her amnesty, so she did not have to go to jail after all. However, her life turned even worse after the incident. In my study, I examine why the events turned out the way they did and how the tragedy could have been avoided.
The study analyses the post-socialist codes of private law. It evaluates them in the history of codification, presents their social background and contrasts the monistic and dualistic approach of codification.
The validity as an essential element of contract is the basis for achieving the economic purpose set out in in it. Without validity there is no legal way to enforce the contractual content. In addition to the identity of the theoretical foundations of the legal institution of validity, significant differences can be observed between Romanian and Hungarian law. Those differences justify the performance of a comparative legal study beside several other specific reasons. The first of the this special reasons is the cross-border economic relations and the Hungarian legal society in Romania, which can play a 'bridge' in this matter. The real need for professional co-operation between members of the same mother tongue lawyers results summaries of the conceptual issues based on comparative legal studies. For theoretical, scientific and practical purposes the study outlines the basic issues of the nullity and avoidance of a contract, the partly different basic positions of the two legal systems, the grounds for annulment and the legal consequences.
Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council in matters of succession is based on the principles of uniformity and predictability. The succession procedure should be governed by a single statutory provision in each Member State, uniformly with regard to all types of property, in terms of quality of succession, provisions on the opening and place of the succession, ineligibility for inheritance, survivor's rights. The harmonization that has begun runs counter to the different national laws and regulations of the Member States, which will only be possible to approximate over time, but uniform rules would significantly facilitate and resolve the legal problems that arise in succession proceedings.
The paper summarises the sources, functions and species (types) of Hungarian private law's general principles. It emphasises that the non-legal basis thereof consists in the Common European Cultural Heritage (as Greek philosophy, Roman law, Judeo-Christian religious tradition, Humanism, Enlightenment). Thereafter, the contribution analyses the interdependence and mechanisms of action of the governing principles of Rule of Law and Justice. The study shows that, on the one hand, among homogeneous relationships and circumstances, Justice operates as the Rule of Law, while, in heterogeneity, it is the Equity, which performs the Rule of Law by means of correction of Justice: Both Justice and Equity guarantee the perpetuance of Rule of Law, which has a certain predominance according to the previous two principles. The article presents how these governing principles bind and oblige legislation, application of law and subjects of law (persons) as well. In a critical approach, the paper defines Equity as it is a governing principle of Hungarian private law obliging legislation and jurisdiction in different manners for guaranteeing Rule of Law by a correction of Justice through a one-sided preference resulting from judicial discretion based on statutory mandate for the purpose, on the one hand, of the shield those worthy of protection, and, on the other hand, in special and extraordinary cases, in order to grant derogations from the general norm within the very provisions of certain regulations.
