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table of contents
Diemut Majer: Die Französische Revolution als Hintergrund der europäischen Grundrechts-
und Privatrechtsentwicklung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Philip Pajakowski: “The Free Conviction, Rising from within”: Julius Glaser and the Establishment
of Trial by Jury in Liberal Austria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
Andrew Watson: The Silent Revolution in Methods of Advocacy in English Courts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36
Alessandro Hirata: Roman and Neo-Babylonian Private Law in a Comparative Legal History Perspective . . . . . . . . .48
Dmitry Poldnikov: Origins of General Concept of Contract in Western European Legal Science
(12th through 16th Centuries) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53
Gábor Hamza: Tradition des römischen Rechts und Kodifikation des Privatrechts in Bulgarien . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60
Tamás Nótári: Some Remarks on the Issue of Suicide in Roman Criminal Law. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65
Katalin Siska: Slavery in the Ottoman Empire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71
István Sándor: On the Emergence and Development of the Trust Legal Institution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80
Péter Bónis: Bona fides exuberans. A New Legal Concept of Twelfth Century Legal Scholarship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97
György Képes: The Birth and Youth of the Modern Hungarian Private Law. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Csaba Cservák: The Theory of the Distribution of Powers and its Practical Implementation,
in Particular with Regard to the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Lu Da: Jus Sanguinis – The Basic Principle in Citizenship Law, Comparative Analysis
of First Citizenship Law between Visegrad Four and China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Fanny Koleva: First Trademark Regulations in Bulgaria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Engjëll Likmeta, Enton Dimni: Historical – Legal View of the Freedom of Religion in Republic of Albania . . . . . . . . 139
Carmine Galloro: Der Rücktritt gemäß Art. 50 EUV unter Rechtshistorischen Aspekten.
Der Fall des sog. ‚Brexit‘ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Readers React
Jozef Beòa: History of Law or History of State and Law.
(On the Subject of Pedagogical and Scientific Work of Legal Historians). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
book reviews
Peter Landau: Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte im Kontext Europas. 40 Aufsätze aus vier Jahrzehnten . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Henning Kästner: Der Weimarer Landtag 1817-1848. Kleinstaatlicher Parlamentarismus
zwischen Tradition und Wandel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Viktor Winkler: Der Kampf gegen die Rechtswissenschaft. Franz Wieackers „Privatrechtsgeschichte
der Neuzeit und die deutsche Rechtswissenschaft des 20. Jahrhunderts“.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Martin P. Schennach: Neuere italienische Rechtsgeschichte: 19. und 20. Jahrhundert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Jiøí Bílý: Christianizace øímského antického státu (Stát – Právo – Náboženství – Spoleènost) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Michael Stolleis (Hrsg.): Konflikt und Koexistenz. Die Rechtsordnungen Südosteuropas
im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (= Band 1: Rumänien, Bulgarien, Griechenland) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Julia Maria Gokel: Sprachliche Indizien für inneres System bei Q. Cervidius Scaevola . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Reports from history of law
Die Gründung der Dezsõ-Márkus-Forschungsgruppe für Vergleichende Rechtsgeschichte in Pécs.
Beweggründe – Motive – Visionen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
„Prolegomena per una palingenesi dei libri di Paolo ad Vitellium“ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Forth Biennial Conference of the European Society for Comparative Legal History
«Culture, Identity and Legal Instrumentalism» (Gdañsk-Gdynia, 28 June – 1 July 2016). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Guidelines for authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
JOURNAL ON EUROPEAN HISTORY OF LAW
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JOURNAL ON EUROPEAN HISTORY OF LAW:
JUDr. PhDr. Stanislav Balík
Attorney at Law, Prague, Czech Republic
Prof. Dr. Barna Mezey
Faculty of Law, Eötvös-Loránd-University Budapest,
Hungary
Prof. JUDr. Jozef Beòa, CSc.
Faculty of Law, Comenius University in Bratislava,
Slovak Republic
Doc. JUDr. PhDr. Jiøí Bílý, CSc.
Metropolite – University Prague, Czech Republic
Dr. Piotr Fiedorczyk
Faculty of Law, University of Bia³ystok, Poland
Alberto Iglesias Garzón, Ph.D.
Charles III University of Madrid, Spain
Prof. Dr.iur. Dr.phil. Thomas Gergen, MA
European University for Economics and Management,
Luxembourg
Prof. Dr. Gábor Hamza
Faculty of Law, Eötvös-Loránd-University Budapest,
Hungary
Prof. JUDr. Ignác Antonín Hrdina, DrSc.
Faculty of Law, Westbohemia University, Plzeò,
Czech Republic
JUDr. Vilém Knoll, Ph.D.
Faculty of Law, Westbohemia University, Plzeò,
Czech Republic
Doc. dr. sc. Mirela Kresic
Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Prof. zw. dr hab. Adam Lityñski
Faculty of Law, University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland
Doc. Dr. Olga Lysenko
Faculty of Law, Lomonosov Moscow State University,
Russia
Tony Murphy
Department of Law & Criminology,
Sheffield Hallam University, UK
ao. Univ. Prof. Dr.jur. Christian Neschwara
Faculty of Law, University of Vienna, Austria
Doc. Dr. Dmitry Poldnikov
Faculty of Law, National Research University,
Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
Dr Dr Guido Rossi
Edinburgh Law School – University of Edinburgh, UK
Doc. JUDr. Karel Schelle, CSc.
Faculty of Law, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Dr. Gábor Schweitzer, Ph.D.
Institute for Legal Studies
of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary
Adw. Ewa Stawicka
Attorney at Law, Warsaw, Poland
Dr. Magdolna Szûcs, Ph.D.
Faculty of Law, University of Novi Sad, Serbia
JUDr. Bc. Jaromír Tauchen, Ph.D., LL.M.
Faculty of Law, Masaryk University, Brno,
Czech Republic
Prof. Dr. Wulf Eckart Voß
Faculty of Law, University of Osnabrück, Germany
102
J E H L
The Birth and Youth of the Modern Hungarian Private Law
György Képes *
Abstract
1848 was a turning point in Hungary in all senses of legal development. It is not only the emblematic year of beginning of the constitutional
monarchy based on separation of powers, popular sovereignty, governmental responsibility and civil liberties, but in general, 1848 can be considered
as the start year of modern Hungary. From the point of view of private law, the abolition of seigneurial relationship between landlords and peasants
and the abrogation of traditional legal institutions of property and inheritance law hindering the free disposition on goods has to be mentioned. After
the fall of the 1848 revolution, the introduction of the Austrian civil law also catalysed the process of modernisation, and finally, after 1861, the
modern Hungarian private law was born, without the adoption of a civil code, strongly based on the jurisdiction of the courts.
Key words: Hungarian legal history; Hungarian private law; Aviticitas; Restrictions on property; Freedom of property; Legal modernisation
in Hungary.
As the conclusion of the Reform Era marked with sessions
of the old Hungarian diet full of new spirit in the 1830’s and
40’s (the “reform diets”),
1
a series of laws was adopted by the
parliament in the second half of March 1848, right after the
revolutionary demonstrations in Vienna on 13 March, and in
Budapest on 15 March 1848. The laws were sanctioned (or, as
we say in the Hungarian public law, “sanctified”) by King Fer-
dinand V (1835–1848), on 11 April 1848. That is where their
name “the April Laws” derives from.
2
The April Laws can be divided into three groups, the first two
of which, i.e. the laws establishing the new, “recognizably par-
liamentary form of government” of Hungary
3
(Acts III–V of
1848), and the ones declaring the fundamental liberties of the
Hungarian citizens (such as the famous Act XVIII of 1848 on
the freedom of the press and on the abolition of censorship,
by the way, demand number one of the Hungarian revolution-
ary movement of 1848), together form the new constitution of
the Kingdom of Hungary without having been incorporated in
a single constitutional charter as it had been the case in other
contemporary monarchies like France (e.g. 1791, 1814, 1830),
Norway (1814) or the one obviously serving as the model for
the April Laws, the 1831 Constitution of Belgium.
The third group of the April Laws is about the elimination
of the remains of the “feudal” (or rather, estate based) social
and legal institutions. This third group of laws includes two,
rather declaratory acts, Act IX of 1848 on the abolition of the
seigneurial obligations, i.e. the services of the peasants towards
their landlords,
4
and Act XV of 1848 on the abolition of avi-
ticitas, the “traditional system of noble landholding”,
5
a very
restrictive institution of the medieval Hungarian law.
This latter act suspended and prohibited all legal disputes
based on aviticitas, and at the same time – on the proposal of
the new Minister of Justice Ferenc Deák
6
– it obliged the gov-
ernment to prepare a civil code and to submit the draft “to
the next parliament”.
7
The new Hungarian government, the
so-called Ministerium – the first accountable government in the
Hungarian constitutional history, led by Count Lajos Batthyány
8
appointed by the King on 17 March 1848 to the position of
Prime Minister the first time in Hungary – had no possibility
to deal with the matter of the civil code. Although Deák had
*
György Képes, Ph.D, senior lecturer, Department of Hungarian Legal History, Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest, Hungary.
1
RADY, Martyn, Customary Law in Hungary: Courts, Texts, and the Tripartitum, Oxford, 2015, p. 219.
2
POMOGYI, László, Magyar alkotmány- és jogtörténeti kéziszótár, Budapest, 2008, p. 60.
3
RADY, Customary Law in Hungary, op. cit., p. 221.
4
BÉLI, Gábor, Magyar jogtörténet. A tradicionális jog, 2
nd
ed., Budapest–Pécs, 2009, p. 307.
5
RADY, Customary Law in Hungary, op. cit., p. 222.
6
Ferenc Deák (1803–1876), jurist and politician, Minister of Justice of the first Hungarian government in 1848, father of the Austro-Hungarian Com-
promise of 1867 and leader of the so-called “Deák party” until his death.
7
MÁDL, Ferenc, Magyarország elsõ polgári törvénykönyve — az 1959. évi IV. törvény — a polgári jogi kodifikáció történetének tükrében, Az MTA
Társadalmi-történeti Tudományok Osztályának Közleményei X., (1–2), 1960, 3–88., p. 50. See Section 1 of Act XV of 1848. Available in Hungarian:
http://1000ev.hu/index.php? a=3 & param=5283 [Accessed 7 July 2016]
8
Count Lajos Batthyány (1807–1849), president of the first accountable government in Hungary in 1848, executed after the fall of the revolutionary war,
on 6 October 1849.
103
2/2016
formally mandated the excellent jurist, László Szalay
9
to prepare
the draft, there was no time to complete the work.
10
As Mária Homoki-Nagy, professor of legal history at Szeged
University established, “1848–49 were not suitable for peace-
ful and calm legislation”, but she also emphasises that in 1848,
when the most important “feudal” restriction of property, the
aviticitas had been abrogated (Act XV), and the serfs had been
finally liberated (Act IX), actually the fundaments of the entire
old Hungarian private law had been abolished.
11
1. Retrospection: the characteristics
and restrictive institutions of the traditional
Hungarian private law
The traditional era of the Hungarian private law dates back
to the Middle Ages, at least to the 13–14th centuries (Golden
Bull of 1222, laws of Louis the Great of 1351), and as we have
seen above, it lasted until the 19th century. The main source of
the traditional Hungarian customary law is the great compila-
tory work of István Werbõczy,
12
the famous Tripartitum opus iuris
consuetudinarii inclyti regni Hungariae (literally “A Work in Three
Parts on the Customary Law of the Renowned Kingdom of Hun-
gary”), in a popular abbreviated form called the Tripartitum.
13
1.1 The Tripartitum
In 1514, Werbõczy’s work had been approved by the diet
and supported by King Wladislas II (1490–1516) as well, but
it was not formally sanctified by the latter, officially because he
suddenly had to leave the diet, but probably rather as the result
of a successful sabotage of the high nobility (the Barons), who
strongly opposed the idea of the “one and equal liberty” of the
Hungarian nobility (una eademque libertas, expressed under sec-
tion 7 of Part I, Title 9).
14
Without the royal sanction, the Tripartitum could not be con-
stitutionally enacted into the Hungarian statute law, therefore
the author (in 1514 a deputy judge besides the Justice of the
Realm, in 1516 – after the death of Wladislas II – nominated
by the royal council to the position of Personalis, representative
of the king in the judiciary
15
and, ex officio, the chairman of the
Royal Table, the second highest royal court in the late medieval
and early modern Hungary)
16
decided in 1517 to print the
book at his own expense and send it out to the counties for
proclamation and further use.
17
As the legal historian Andor Csizmadia wrote in a study in
1983, the Tripartitum “remained till our times the recognised
source of the Hungarian customary law”.
18
A year later, anoth-
er Hungarian legal historian, Ödön Both called the Tripartitum
“the legal Bible of the Hungarian nobility”.
19
As Jean W. Sedlar,
professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh also empha-
sised in her book published in 1994 on the medieval history of
East Central Europe: “for many centuries it served the Hungar-
ian elite as a constant point of reference”.
20
Until the end of the 19th century, the work was published in
more than fifty editions.
21
The first, yet incomplete Hungarian
9
László Szalay (1813–1864), jurist, historian and politician, one of the most prominent figures of the Hungarian legal modernisation.
10
BALOGH, Judit, Magánjog a XIX. század végén Magyarországon (Katona Mór 1899-es kiadású rendszeres magánjoga elé), In: KATONA, Mór, A mai
érvényû magyar magánjog vezérfonala (1899). Közjegyzõi füzetek – Studia Notarialia Hungarica, Tom. VII., Budapest, 2008, IX–XXIV., pp. XII–XIII.;
CSIZMADIA, Andor, A jogi hagyományok, mint a jogi reformok korlátai Magyarországon a XIX. században, Jogtudományi Közlöny, 1 (1979), 30–40.,
p. 33.; HORVÁTH, Attila, A magyar magánjog történetének alapjai, Budapest, 2006, p. 54.
11
HOMOKI-NAGY, Mária, A magyar magánjog kodifikációja a 19. században, Jogtörténeti Szemle, 1 (2004), 4–7., p. 5. See also KAJTÁR, István, A 19.
századi modern magyar állam- és jogrendszer alapjai, Budapest–Pécs, 2003, p. 219.
12
István Werbõczy (c. 1465–1541), royal judge, Personalis (representative of the King in the judiciary) since 1517, later (in 1525–26) Palatine of the King-
dom of Hungary.
13
CSIZMADIA, Andor, Hungarian Customary Law before the Bourgeois Rebellion of 1848, The Journal of Legal History, 4 (1983), 3–37., pp. 22. and
28–29. [conclusions]; ZLINSZKY, János, Two Questions about the Adaptation of Juridical Models: The XII Tables and Hungarian Reception, In: Acta
Juridica Hungarica, Vol. 33., N° 1–2., Budapest, 1991, 39–56., p. 52. In a modern English translation see BAK M., János – BANYÓ, Péter – RADY,
Martyn (eds.), The Customary Law of the Renowned Kingdom of Hungary: A Work in Three Parts Rendered by Stephen Werbõczy, Los Angeles, 2005. (Translated
by János Bak M.)
14
See eg. CSIKY, Kálmán, Werbõczy István és Hármaskönyve, Budapest, 1899, pp. 34–35.; CSIZMADIA, Hungarian Customary Law, op. cit., pp. 16–17.
and 20.; HAMZA, Gábor, A Tripartitum mint jogforrás, In: MÁTHÉ, Gábor – ZLINSZKY, János (eds.), Degré Alajos emlékkönyv, Budapest, 1995, 77–85.,
p. 79.; HERCZEG, Mihály, Magánjogi codificatiónk hajdan és mostan, Jogtudományi Közlöny, 48 (1877), 373–375., p. 373.; ILLÉS, József, Bevezetés
a magyar jog történetébe. A források története, Budapest, 1910, pp. 132–133.; MÁDL, Magyarország elsõ polgári törvénykönyve, op. cit., p. 40., RADY,
Martyn, Stephen Werbõczy and his Tripartitum, In: BAK M., J. – BANYÓ, P. – RADY, M. (eds.), The Customary Law of the Renowned Kingdom of Hungary,
xxvii–xliv., p. xxxix., etc.
15
In Martyn Rady’s English translation: “judge of the personal presence”, See RADY, Martyn, Judicial Organization and Decision Making in Old Hun-
gary, The Slavonic and East European Review, 3 (2012), 450–481., p. 464. Pál Engel simply calls the position “Personal”. See ENGEL, Pál, The Realm of
St. Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526, New York, 2001, p. 364.
16
ECKHART, Ferenc, Magyar alkotmány- és jogtörténet, Budapest, 2000 [Original edition: 1946], p. 157.; MEZEY, Barna, Az 500 éves jogkönyv, Jogtörténeti
Szemle, 4 (2014) – 1 (2015), 1–12., p. 9.
17
See e.g. BÉLI, Magyar jogtörténet, op. cit., p. 29.; CSIZMADIA, Hungarian Customary Law, op. cit., p. 17.; ECKHART, Magyar alkotmány- és jogtörténet,
op. cit., p. 159.; HAMZA, A Tripartitum, op. cit., p. 79.; HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 135.; ILLÉS, Bevezetés a magyar jog történetébe, op.
cit., p. 135.; MEZEY, Az 500 éves jogkönyv, op. cit., pp. 10–11.; RADY, Customary Law of Hungary, op. cit., p. 19. etc.
18
CSIZMADIA, Hungarian Customary Law, op. cit., p. 16.
19
BOTH, Ödön, A magyar feudális tulajdon fõ vonásai a kései feudalizmus idején, Jogtudományi Közlöny, 6 (1984), 328–333., p. 331. See also ENGEL,
The Realm of St. Stephen, op. cit., p. 350. [“the favourite reading, if not the Bible, of the nobility”]; JOBBÁGYI, Gábor, Werbõczy és a Hármaskönyv, Jog-
tudományi Közlöny, 9 (1989), 466–469., p. 467.; POMOGYI, Magyar alkotmány- és jogtörténeti kéziszótár, op. cit., p. 401.; MEZEY, Az 500 éves jogkönyv,
op. cit., p. 11. [“Bible of the nobility”]
20
SEDLAR, Jean W., East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 1000–1500), Seattle–London, 1994, p. 332.
21
HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 135.; ILLÉS, Bevezetés a magyar jog történetébe, op. cit., pp. 137–138.
104
J E H L
version was published by Balázs Weres in 1565 in Debrecen, and
a revised and more complete Hungarian edition by Gáspár Hel-
tai in 1571 in Kolozsvár (now Cluj, Romania).
22
The Opus was
translated by Ivan Pergošiæ, that time the notary of the city of
Varaždin,
23
into Croatian (or more precisely, into Slavonian)
24
language in 1574,
25
and in 1599 it was published in Vienna in
German translation as well.
26
As a very important development, the Tripartitum was in-
serted into the publication of Hungarian laws first in 1628, to
the beginning of the book,
27
and then to the first edition of-
ficially called Corpus Juris Hungarici in 1696 as well. It was also
added to the Transylvanian compilation of laws at the end of
the 17th century. When the Corpus Juris Hungarici was published
in a ceremonial edition in 1896, a bilingual (Latin and Hungar-
ian) version of the Tripartitum was issued as a separate volume,
with glossary.
28
Werbõczy’s “Work in Three Parts” primarily deals with the
rights of the noblemen, as it seemed unnecessary and, to a cer-
tain extent, impossible to harmonise the norms of customary
law related to peasants or burghers on a national level.
In Part I,
consisting of 134 Titles, the private law of the noblemen (and
primarily the rules regarding noble landholding)
29
is presented
in detail, but some criminal law institutions are also referred to
(e.g. the cases of infidelity, mentioned in relation to the confis-
cation of property, see Part I, Title 14). Part II is about proce-
dural rules, mainly from the point of view of the enforcement of
the norms of private law, and especially in order to protect the
rights of noblemen.
30
The so-called “particular rights”, such as
the rights of the peasants, burghers, and also some regulations
held valid for Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, and for Transylva-
nia, are delineated in Part III.
31
From the “Three Parts”, obviously Prima pars has the greatest
importance, for it was unquestionably the primary source of the
Hungarian private law until the 19th century.
32
In the follow-
ing, we try to summarise the characteristics of this traditional
period of the Hungarian private law very briefly, in order to
promote the understanding of the significance of the changes
of 1848.
1.2 Law of persons
The law of persons of that era can be typified with one word:
inequality. It means that, until 1848, some factors of personal
status, such as gender, nationality, religion (if someone followed
the state religion, or later the so-called religiones receptae, “es-
tablished religions”), “legitimacy” (i.e. if someone was born in
a valid marriage or not), and – above all – the social status (if
someone belongs to any of the social estates, and primarily to
the una eademque nobilitas) determined the extent of the legal
capacity of the given person.
As the Romanist lawyer and legal historian Béla Szabó un-
derlines concerning Werbõczy’s doctrine on the uniform nobil-
ity: “it drew a sharp dividing line between the nobles and the
non-nobles”.
33
Of course, it does not mean that a peasant (serf)
could not have any property (or other personal rights), but it
actually means that his position in all areas of law, in private law
relationships as well as before criminal authorities, was far from
identical to that of a nobleman. This inequality was abolished
by the Hungarian diet by the adoption of Act IX of 1848.
1.3 Acquired and ancient property
The property law also had a similar, restrictive characteristic,
and this is, quite ironically, the lack of property. There was no
“property” in the modern sense of the word (ownership) in the
traditional Hungarian private law, or, more precisely, proprietas
as an exclusive right on goods existed only on moveable assets
(res mobiles) and on “acquired goods” (bona acquisita).
34
In the
22
RÁCZ, Lajos, Werbõczi István Tripartitumának elsõ fordításai, In: MEZEY, Barna – RÉVÉSZ, T. Mihály, Ünnepi tanulmányok Máthé Gábor 65. születés-
napja tiszteletére, Budapest, 2006, 453–466., pp. 455–456.
23
BLAZOVICH, László, A Tripartitum és forrásai, Századok, 4 (2007), 1012–1023., p. 1015.; ŠTEFANEC, Nataša, Pergošiæ’s Translation of the Triparti-
tum into Slavonian, In: RADY, Martyn (ed.), Custom and Law in Central Europe, Cambridge, 2003, 71–85., p. 75.
24
ŠTEFANEC, Pergošiæ’s Translation, op. cit., pp. 75–76.
25
Croatian title in contemporary spelling: Decretum koteroga je Werbeuczi Istvan diachki popiszal. The newest edition is BARTOLIÆ, Zvonimir, Ivanuš Pergošiæ:
Decretum 1574. – hrvatski kajkavski prijevod editio princeps, Èakovec, 2003, 203–390.
26
This 1599 edition is available as a free ebook at https://books.google.hu/books?id=619XAAAAcAAJ. A Hungarian version from 1643 is also available
as a free ebook thanks to Google Books, see https://books.google.hu/ books?id=stJdAAAAcAAJ [Accessed 20 July 2016]
27
SZLADITS, Károly, A magyar magánjog vázlata 1., 4
th
revised ed., Budapest, 1933, p. 8.
28
ECKHART, Magyar alkotmány- és jogtörténet, op. cit., p. 159. and 265.; GÖNCZI, Katalin, Werbõczy’s Reception in Hungarian Legal Culture, In: RADY,
Martyn (ed.), Custom and Law in Central Europe, Cambridge, 2003, 87–99., pp. 96–97.; ILLÉS, Bevezetés a magyar jog történetébe, op. cit., pp. 138–139.;
MEZEY, Az 500 éves jogkönyv, op. cit., p. 11.; RADY, Customary Law of Hungary, op. cit., p. 20.; PÉTER, László, The Irrepressible Authority of
Werbõczy’s Tripartitum, In: Hungary’s Long Nineteenth Century: Constitutional and Democratic Traditions in a European Pespective. Collected Studies, Leiden–
Boston, 2012, 134–152., p. 138.; RADY, Stephen Werbõczy and his Tripartitum, op. cit., p. xl.; SZABÓ, Béla, Development of Law in Hungary: the
First Eight Centuries, In: Gergely, András – Máthé, Gábor (eds.), The Hungarian State. Thousand Years in Europe, Budapest, 2000, 130–167., p. 143.
29
JOBBÁGYI, Werbõczy és a Hármaskönyv, op. cit., p. 469.; RADY, Stephen Werbõczy and his Tripartitum, op. cit., p. xxxv.
30
SZABÓ, Development of Law in Hungary, op. cit., p. 144.
31
ECKHART, Magyar alkotmány- és jogtörténet, op. cit., p. 160.; JOBBÁGYI, Werbõczy és a Hármaskönyv, op. cit., p. 469.; MEZEY, Az 500 éves jogkönyv,
op. cit., p. 10.; RADY, Stephen Werbõczy and his Tripartitum, op. cit., pp. xxxvi–xxxvii.
32
HOMOKI-NAGY, Mária, A magyar magánjog történetének vázlata 1848-ig, Szeged, 2001, p. 7.; HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 137.; SZILÁ-
GYI, Ferenc, National Report on the Transfer of Movables in Hungary, In: FABER, Wolfgang – LURGER, Brigitta (eds.), National Report on the Transfer
of Movables in Europe. München: Sellier, 2011, pp. 409–702., p. 431.; SZLADITS, A magyar magánjog vázlata 1., op. cit., p. 8.
33
SZABÓ, Development of Law in Hungary, op. cit., p. 161.
34
ECKHART, Magyar alkotmány- és jogtörténet, op. cit., p. 283.; KÁLLAY, István, A nemesi tulajdon kötöttségei, Jogtudo mányi Közlöny, 8 (1981), 702–706.,
p. 702.
105
2/2016
case of the land and some other valuable goods (qualifying as res
immobiles under the old Hungarian private law), some traditional
institutions restricted the owner’s rights, first of all the right of
disposition (ius disponendi), which is indeed the most significant
right of the owner in the modern interpretation of private law.
35
The most important restrictive institution was the already
mentioned aviticitas. In order to understand the significance of
Act XV of 1848 in the formation of the modern Hungarian
private law, we have to understand the meaning of this institu-
tion. In the medieval Hungary, very probably since the Hun-
garian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in the 890’s,
36
there
had been a tradition to make a distinction between acquisitum
(goods newly acquired) and aviticum (goods inherited from the
ancestors).
1.4 Inheritance law
If something had been inherited from an ancestor (avus)
37
ac-
cording to the rules of intestate succession (“from father to son”),
it became an aviticum, which meant that the given asset became
the property of the family or, in broader sense, that of the kin-
dred or kinship (gens).
38
The difference between acquisitum and
aviticum is that, while the first could be freely sold and purchased,
and the owner could freely dispose on it in his will as well, the
latter had to be preserved as the property of the family.
In the inheritance law, it meant that the bona avitica (literal
translation of the Hungarian term õsi javak: “ancient goods” or
“ancient property”)
39
were always inherited according to the or-
der of intestate succession, i.e. the testamentary succession was
excluded. In the event of lack of descendants, the other branches
of the family would inherit.
40
Citing Béla Szabó’s words again:
“The guiding principle concerning the ancient property was
that […] every family should keep what came from the given
family”.
41
1.5 Property law
It is even more interesting to examine the legal consequenc-
es of the aviticitas in the property law. Here, the protection of
this institution actually created something like the restraint
on alienation and encumbrance is in the modern civil law.
42
If a nobleman intended to alienate its property classifying as
aviticum (which meant over time a very small portion of the
ancient common property of the family), he had to offer it to
the members of his family (praemonitio), which meant in prac-
tice that the consent of all kinsmen had to be obtained for the
transaction.
43
The lack of consent of any, even unknown member of the
patrilineage
44
could lead to the consequence that years, or even
centuries after the act of alienation, this ”son of the father”
(atyafi),
45
or any of his heirs had the right to claim the property
back.
46
As the historian Martyn Rady emphasises in his book
on the Hungarian nobility, the law of aviticitas was “the law
of collective rights over properties inherited from a common
ancestor”.
47
According to a contemporary paper written by the
enlightened writer and political thinker, György Bessenyei
48
in
1804, “There is no landed nobleman [in Hungary] who would
not be tousled by ten or twenty litigations”.
49
Let us add: litiga-
tions initiated by his own kinsmen.
This restriction and the consequent risk that the new owner
may lose the property years, decades or even centuries later,
made the bona avitica basically non-marketable. As Count István
Széchenyi
50
highlighted in his famous work, Hitel (Credit) pub-
lished in 1830,
51
the aviticitas, the “conservation of the fami-
lies” is an obstacle to the development of the country, primarily
because no one would accept a good as a credit guarantee, as
a cover for the credit itself, if such good cannot be freely alienat-
ed.
52
In his other programmatic work, Stádium (first published
in Leipzig, 1833)
53
he expressed that “aviticitas would be abol-
35
HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 266.
36
KÁLLAY, István, Kötetlen kötöttség a feudális magánjogban, Jogtudományi Közlöny, 7 (1982), 527–530., p. 527.
37
RADY, Customary Law in Hungary, op. cit., p. 85.
38
FÜGEDI, Erik, Some Characteristics of the Medieval Hungarian Noble Family, Journal of Family History, 1 (1982), 27–39., p. 29.; FÜGEDI, Erik, The
Elefánthy: The Hungarian Nobleman and his Kindred, Budapest, 1998, p. 20.; HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 266.; KÁLLAY, A nemesi tulajdon
kötöttségei, op. cit., p. 704.; SANTA-PINTER, J. J., The »Decretum unicum« of Louis the Great and his Kassa (Koszyce) Privilegium, Ungarn-Jahrbuch.
Zeitschrift für die Kunde Ungarns und verwandte Gebiete, Band 12 (1982–1983), 87–108., p. 90.
39
SZABÓ, Development of Law in Hungary, op. cit., p. 158.
40
HOMOKI-NAGY, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., pp. 79–80.; ZACHÁR, Gyula, A magyar magánjog alaptanai, Budapest, 1912, pp. 61–62. and 332.
41
SZABÓ, Development of Law in Hungary, op. cit., p. 160.
42
BÉLI, Magyar jogtörténet, op. cit., p. 71.; GROSSCHMID, Béni, Magánjogi elõadások. Jogszabálytan, Budapest, 1905, p. 649.
43
BOTH, A magyar feudális tulajdon, op. cit., p. 329.; HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 267.; KÁLLAY, A nemesi tulajdon kötöttségei, op. cit.,
p. 704.; SZABÓ, Development of Law in Hungary, op. cit., p. 160.
44
FÜGEDI, Some Characteristics, op. cit., p. 30.
45
Ibid., p. 30.
46
ILLÉS, Bevezetés a magyar jog történetébe, op. cit., pp. 208–209.; RADY, Customary Law in Hungary, op. cit., pp. 93. and 136.
47
RADY, Martyn, Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary, Basingstoke, 2000, p. 97.
48
György Bessenyei (1747–1811), poet and writer, political thinker of the Hungarian enlightenment.
49
BESSENYEI, György, Magyarországnak törvényes állása, In: Bessenyei György válogatott mûvei, Budapest, 1987, 691–816., cited by HORVÁTH, A mag-
yar magánjog, op. cit., p. 267.
50
Count István Széchenyi (1791–1860), politician, leading personality of the Hungarian reform era called by the posterity as “the Greatest Hungarian”,
later Minister of Transport in the first Hungarian government in 1848.
51
Available in Hungarian: http://mek.oszk.hu/06100/06132/html/ [Accessed 7 July 2016]
52
GÖNCZI, Werbõczy’s Reception, op. cit., p. 93.; RÁCZ, Lajos, Széchenyi István államtudományi gondolkodásáról, Jog tudo mányi Közlöny, 3 (1981),
171–178., pp. 175–176.; RADY, Customary Law in Hungary, op. cit., p. 220.
53
Available in Hungarian: http://mek.oszk.hu/06100/06135/html/ [Accessed 10 July 2016]
106
J E H L
ished forever”.
54
Count Széchenyi was the first politician in Hun-
gary who proposed a complete legal reform, and as the part of
it, a thorough modernisation of the Hungarian private law.
55
2. The era of “individual liberalism”: the first
half century of the modern Hungarian private law
The April Laws made clear that the traditional social struc-
tures, and the old Hungarian private law based on them, can-
not be maintained. With János Zlinszky’s words: in 1848 the
reformers “had abolished the feudal constraints of the property
with one stroke”.
56
The Hungarian revolution and war of inde-
pendence of 1848/49 failed in August 1849, but the Austrian
occupying forces (and the new Austrian emperor, Francis Joseph
himself) had no intention to reinstall the traditional “feudal”
institutions in Hungary. They oppressed the idea of the inde-
pendent constitutional Kingdom of Hungary by military force,
but they did not oppose the social and economic modernisation
of the country at all.
Consequently, the era of the so-called Neo-Absolutism (1849–
1861/1867) was characterised by a very repressive political
power, and at the same time by a quick modernisation of Hun-
garian law as well.
57
Abolition of the “feudal” restrictions of
property and the obstacles of free commerce clearly coincided
with the interests of the Austrian political and business elite. As
the legal historian Attila Horváth mentions in his book on the
history of Hungarian private law, a good example of this was
the fact that the customs border had already been eliminated
with effect from 1 October 1850.
58
The Emperor’s letter patent of 29 November 1852 (“Avitiz-
itäts-Patent”)
59
confirmed the abolition of aviticitas and elimi-
nated the distinctions between “ancient” and acquired goods.
60
At the same time the Austrian Civil Code (Allgemeines Bürger-
liches Gesetzbuch, ABGB) of 1811 was introduced in Hungary,
with effect from 1 May 1853.
61
The abolition of serfdom was
also confirmed by the letter patent of 2 March 1853 (Urbarial
Patent);
62
and the land registration was introduced with effect
from 15 December 1855.
63
Concerning the latter, it is interest-
ing enough to be mentioned that the application of the Aus-
trian Land Register had already been ordered by the Emperor
immediately after the fall of the Hungarian revolution, in Octo-
ber 1849, and the cadastral survey began in 1853.
64
There is no doubt that all these norms of the Austrian law
entered unconstitutionally in force in Hungary. Act XII of
1790/91 on the exercise of legislative and executive powers ex-
plicitly prohibited the governance of the country through “de-
crees or so-called patents”.
65
However, the Austrian law helped
to turn the country into a new direction: towards the modern
era. Of course, the receipt of the unconstitutionally enforced
legal norms in the Hungarian society was first rather negative,
66
but the Hungarian political elite, then already led by Ferenc
Deák, the father of the Austro-Hungarian Settlement of 1867
on the Hungarian side, understood the positive effects thereof
as well.
2.1 The Provisional Judicial Regulations
On 20 October 1860, Francis Joseph issued the October Di-
ploma, promising to restore the constitutional integrity of Hun-
gary within the Empire.
67
At the same time, he informed his
Court Chancellor of Hungary, Baron Miklós Vay, that the Hun-
garian courts would be soon restored, and a legal conference
would be convoked in order to make proposals regarding the de-
tails how the Hungarian jurisdiction should be reinstalled, and
along what principles the restored courts should decide the new
cases.
68
It was obvious, that the conflict between the traditional
54
CSIZMADIA, Andor, Széchenyi István törekvései a feudális jogrend átalakítására, Az MTA Gazdaság- És Jogtudományi Osztályának Közleményei, Vol. 1.,
3–4 (1966–67), 209–219., p. 213.
55
HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 46.
56
ZLINSZKY, János, Hungarian Private Law in the 19
th
and 20
th
Centuries, up to World War II, In: GERGELY, András – MÁTHÉ, Gábor (eds.), The
Hungarian State. Thousand Years in Europe, Budapest, 2000, 305–334., p. 310.
57
RADY, Customary Law in Hungary, op. cit., p. 222.
58
HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 57.
59
For the full Hungarian text of the letter patent see NIZSALOVSZKY, Endre (ed.): Dologi jog [Magyar magánjog mai érvényében. Törvények, rendeletek,
szokásjog, joggyakorlat, Vol. II.], Budapest, 1928, pp. 259–272.
60
BÉLI, Magyar jogtörténet, op. cit., pp. 308–309.; POMOGYI, Magyar alkotmány- és jogtörténeti kéziszótár, op. cit., p. 916.
61
BÉLI, Magyar jogtörténet, op. cit., p. 310.; POMOGYI, Magyar alkotmány- és jogtörténeti kéziszótár, op. cit., p. 903.; VÉKÁS, Lajos, The Codification of
Private Law in Hungary in Historical Perspective, In: Annales Universitatis Scientiarium Budapestinensis de Rolando Eötvös Nominatae. Sectio Juridica, LI
(2010), 51–63., p. 52. Available: http://www.ajk.elte.hu/file/annales_2010_04_Vekas.pdf [Accessed 7 July 2016]
62
ASZTALOS, László, A magyar burzsoá jog, kialakulásától 1918-ig. A magánjog és a kereskedelmi jog. In: CSIZMADIA, Andor – KOVÁCS, Kálmán –
ASZTALOS, László, Magyar állam- és jogtörténet, Budapest, 1972, 451–502., p. 454.; CSIZMADIA, A jogi hagyományok, op. cit., p. 34.; RADY, Custom-
ary Law in Hungary, op. cit., p. 222.
63
HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., pp. 58. and 229.; VÉKÁS, The Codification of Private Law, op. cit., p. 54. For more detail see ASZTALOS,
A magyar burzsoá jog, op. cit., pp. 455–456.; and BÉLI, Magyar jogtörténet, op. cit., pp. 308–312.
64
SCHARR, Kurt, The Habsburg Cadastral Registration System in the Context of Modernization, In: SIEGRIST, Hannes – MÜLLER, Dietmar (eds.),
Property in East Central Europe. Notions, Institutions and Practices of Landownership in the Twentieth Century, New York–Oxford, 2015, 100–116., p. 114.
[Footnote No. 38.]
65
Available in Hungarian: http://1000ev.hu/index.php?a=3 & param=4886 [Accessed 21 July 2016]
66
See e.g. DEÁK, Ágnes, Társadalmi ellenállási stratégiák Magyarországon az abszolutista kormányzat ellen 1851–1852-ben, Aetas 4 (1995), 27–59.,
especially pp. 34–38.
67
RADY, Customary Law in Hungary, op. cit., p. 224.
68
CSIZMADIA, A jogi hagyományok, op. cit., p. 34.; HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., pp. 62–63.; MÁDL, Magyarország elsõ polgári törvé-
nykönyve, op. cit., p. 53.
107
2/2016
Hungarian law and the recently introduced legal institutions
had to be resolved somehow.
The meeting, chaired by the Justice of the Realm
69
Count
György Apponyi, and therefore usually referred to as the “Confer-
ence of the Justice of the Realm” (Országbírói Értekezlet),
70
began
its work on 22 January 1861. The attendants of the meeting
(judges, legal scholars and other prominent persons invited by
Count Apponyi) established that the norms of the Austrian
law could not apply in Hungary as sources of law, but also de-
clared that “a restitutio in integrum of Hungary’s laws was not
possible”.
71
On the last (18th) session held on 4 March 1861,
the Conference proposed to the Hungarian courts to accept the
letter patent of 2 March 1853 as valid, and to take into consid-
eration in their decisions that aviticitas had been abolished.
Based on the recommendations of the congress, a special
committee drafted a document titled Provisional Judicial Regu-
lations (Ideiglenes Törvénykezési Szabályok, ITSz),
72
which was ap-
proved by the parliament (on 22 June 1861 by the majority of
the house of representatives, and on 1 July 1861 by the upper
house unanimously), but had never been enacted as a law, and
was aimed to be kept in force as an auxiliary instrument for the
courts until the adoption of the Hungarian civil code.
73
So it
happened: as a customary law it remained effective until 1 May
1960, the date of entering into force of the first Hungarian civil
code (Act IV of 1959).
74
The Provisional Judicial Regulations consisted of no less
than 311 sections, many of them dealing with several aspects
of private law (and commercial law). The document practically
saved the idea of the free property, preserving in its sections
20–21 (Book I) all relevant norms of the Austrian Civil Code
concerning ownership (sections 353–379 of ABGB), and this
made the land marketable.
It is important to mention that, according to section 3 (Book
I) of the ITSz, the abolition of aviticitas implied the cease of
the donational system as well,
75
thus in the interpretation of
the Conference, the restrictions attached to the donated lands
(goods acquired through donatio) had also been abolished in
1848.
76
This interpretation was at the same time the confirma-
tion of sections 1–4 of the Avitizitäts-Patent issued on 29 No-
vember 1852.
77
The Regulations maintained in force the rules of the Austrian
law regarding mortgage and transfer of ownership of real prop-
erties, too. According to the modern principle represented by
the Austrian Civil Code and the Land Registration Ordinance
(Telekkönyvi rendtartás) effective from 1855 in Hungary, all en-
cumbrances and changes in the ownership had to be inscribed
in the land registry.
78
With Martyn Rady’s words, “the ITSz
provided a gateway through which further provisions of the
[Austrian] Code might be deemed applicable to Hungary”.
79
2.2 Codification attempts and the role of statute law
The April Laws of 1848, the introduction of the Austrian
private law in 1853 and the land registration in 1855, and,
especially in the field of property law, the Provisional Judicial
Regulations of 1861 altogether helped to form the modern, lib-
eral system of private law in Hungary, without a single uniform
civil code, indeed, in many aspects still based on customary law,
the jurisdiction and legal interpretation of the courts.
80
69
The second highest office of the realm in the medieval Hungary (after the Palatine), re-established in November 1860 as the highest Hungarian office
at that time, in lack of Palatine (nádor) and/or Prime Minister (miniszterelnök, a function established in 1848). In Pál Engel’s translation: “Judge Royal”,
see ENGEL, The Realm of St. Stephen, op. cit., p. 92.; while in Martyn Rady’s translation: “High Judge”, see RADY, Judicial Organization, op. cit., p. 465.
Actually, the Hungarian word országbíró means “Justice of the Realm”, while the literal translation of the original Latin denomination of the position
(Iudex Curiae) would be “Judge of the [Royal] Court”.
70
In a recent publication of the Hungarian supreme court of justice (Curia) it is called “Conference of the Lord Chief Justice”, see http://www.lb.hu/en/
history-and-judicial-reform [Accessed 7 July 2016], while in the English literature “High Judge Conference”, see RADY, Customary Law in Hungary, op.
cit., p. 224., “Lord Chief Justice Conference”, see PÉTER, László, The Primacy of Consuetudo in Hungarian Law, In: RADY, Martyn (ed.), Custom and
Law in Central Europe, Cambridge, 2003, 101–111., p. 106., or “Lord Judge Royal Conference”, see PÉTER, The Irrepressible Authority, op. cit., pp.
143–144. Usage of such different terms can be really confusing, especially for a foreign reader. We prefer “Conference of the Justice of the Realm”, see
precedent footnote.
71
BALOGH, Judit, Az osztrák magánjog hatása a magyarországi kodifikációra a XIX. században, Publicationes Universitatis Miskolciensis, Sectio Juridica
et Politica, XIV (1997), 55–68., p. 63.; HOMOKI-NAGY, A ma gyar magánjog kodifikációja, op. cit., p. 6.; RADY, Customary Law in Hungary, op. cit.,
p. 225.
72
RADY, Customary Law in Hungary, op. cit., p. 228.; Prof. János Zlinszky called the document in an earlier publication in English “Provisional Rules for
Administration of Justice”, see ZLINSZKY J., Hungarian Private Law, op. cit., p. 307. (In this study we prefer Professor Rady’s translation, because the
document was formulated in order to assist the judiciary in general, not specifically its administration.)
73
BÉLI, Magyar jogtörténet, op. cit., p. 314.; HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 65.; MEZEY, Barna, Horvát Boldizsár az Országbírói Értekezleten,
Jogtörténeti Szemle, 3 (2005), 31–38., p. 38.; RADY, Customary Law in Hungary, op. cit., pp. 228–229.
74
HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 65.; PÉTER, The Primacy of Consuetudo, op. cit., p. 108.; RADY, Customary Law in Hungary, op. cit.,
p. 229.;VÉKÁS, Lajos, Magánjogi kodifikáció kultúrtörténeti tükörben, Magyar Tudomány, 1 (2014), 80–89., p. 87.
75
See NIZSALOVSZKY (ed.), Dologi jog, op. cit., p. 259.
76
BÉLI, Magyar jogtörténet, op. cit., p. 314.; GROSSCHMID, Magánjogi elõadások, op. cit., p. 642.
77
See NIZSALOVSZKY (ed.), Dologi jog, op. cit., pp. 260–261.
78
BALOGH, Magánjog a XIX. század végén, op. cit., p. XV.; BÉLI, Magyar jogtörténet, op. cit., pp. 314–315.; HARMATHY, Attila, On Legal Culture of Hun-
gary. Reports to the XVIII
th
International Congress of Comparative Law, Washington D.C., 2010, p. 14. Available: https://jak.ppke.hu/uploads/articles/11887/
file/Angol%20 anyag%201.-%20Szil%C3%A1gyi.doc [Accessed 7 July 2016].; HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 63.; KAJTÁR, A 19. századi
modern, op. cit., p. 220.
79
RADY, Customary Law in Hungary, op. cit., p. 228. See also BALOGH, Az osztrák magánjog hatása, op. cit., p. 63.
80
BALOGH, Magánjog a XIX. század végén, op. cit., p. XVI.; CSIZMADIA, A jogi hagyományok, op. cit., p. 35.
108
J E H L
Even after the Austro-Hungarian Settlement of 1867, when
finally a long peaceful and prosperous period dawned in the
Hungarian history, all codification attempts remained unsuc-
cessful.
81
Exceptions are the areas of commercial law, where “it
was decided that a separate code was necessary for responding
adequately to the needs of commercial life”,
82
and family law,
where the guardianship and some other important aspects of
incapacity of minors and mentally disabled persons were regu-
lated in statute law (Act XX of 1877), and matrimonial law
was also codified, introducing the obligatory civil marriage (Act
XXXI of 1894).
83
The Commercial Code adopted by the parliament in 1875
(Act XXXVII of 1875) contained the norms related to commer-
cial transactions, thus indirectly influencing the (still uncodi-
fied) law of contracts as well, and also regulated the establish-
ment and operation of undertakings (“merchants”),
84
such as
the different forms of business companies, the sole traders, and
the cooperatives. The “Act on Commerce” (Kereskedelmi törvény)
of 1875 drafted by István Apáthy relied strongly on the Ger-
man commercial law (Allgemeines Deutsches Handels gesetzbuch,
1861),
85
and eight sections thereof, regulating commercial
vouchers (Sections 291–298), are still in force.
86
Hungarian legal historians used to refer to the first epoch
of the modern (but uncodified) Hungarian private law, lasting
from 1848 to the crisis years after the First World War, as the
epoch of “liberal capitalism”,
87
or “individual liberalism”.
88
The reason behind such names is that this was in fact the age of
personal autonomy and civil liberties in the Hungarian private
law.
2.3 Law of persons
The law of persons was based on legal equality or, as the
political thinkers of the 1848 revolution called it, the “equal-
ity before the law” (törvény elõtti egyenlõség). It means that all
restrictions (and the different categories) of legal capacity had
been abolished, there were no more persons having only a par-
tial legal capacity, and there were no more privileges raising one
person over the other.
89
However, as the famous 19th century civilist Imre Zlinszky
highlighted in his contemporary work on Hungarian private
law, some differences between persons still had some legal rel-
evance.
90
The most important example was the privileged posi-
tion of the so-called “legitimate children”, i.e. the children born
in wedlock. According to the opinion of Ferenc Mádl,
91
expressed
in one of his early publications, this kind of discrimination be-
tween legitimate and natural children reflected the traditional
“feudal” approach.
92
2.4 Property law
The freedom of property, originating in the modern rules of
ABGB, became the basic principle of the new, liberal property
law in Hungary. The owners had been granted the right not just
to possess (ius possidendi)
93
and to use and make benefit of their
property (ius utendi-fruendi), but also to dispose on it freely (ius
disponendi). Thanks to the introduction of the land registration
in 1855, the lands in the country and houses in the cities could
now be freely sold and safely purchased, and they could also
serve as credit guarantee.
94
2.5 Inheritance law
The freedom of disposition altered the rules of the inheri-
tance law as well, but this change was the less radical among all.
As the already cited contemporary legal scholar, Imre Zlinszky
emphasised in his work written at the end of the 19th century,
“the basis of our inheritance law had always been the family
connection”, and “devise had only been a kind of tolerated in-
stitution in our domestic law”.
95
This conservative approach
(meaning the preferred position of the interests of surviving
81
In English see HAMZA, Gábor, Roman Law and the Development of Hungarian Private Law before the Promulgation of the Civil Code of 1959, Fun-
damina – A Journal of Legal History, 1 (2010), 383–393., pp. 390–391. and RADY, Customary Law in Hungary, op. cit., pp. 233–234.; in greater detail in
Hungarian: HOMOKI-NAGY, A ma gyar magánjog kodifikációja, op. cit., pp. 4–7. and HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., pp. 105–111.
82
KISFALUDI, András, The Influence of Harmonisation of Private Law on the Development of the Civil Law in Hungary, Juridica International, 14
(2008), 130–136., p. 131.
83
CSIZMADIA, A jogi hagyományok, op. cit., pp. 30. and 37–38.
84
KISFALUDI, The Influence of Harmonisation, op. cit., p. 131.
85
HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., pp. 62–63. and 382.; KAJTÁR, A 19. századi modern, op. cit., p. 221.; RADY, Customary Law in Hungary, op.
cit., p. 232.; ZLINSZKY J., The Hungarian Private Law, op. cit., p. 311.
86
As of 7 July 2016. See http://njt.hu/cgi_bin/njt_doc.cgi?docid=6.7 [Accessed 7 July 2016]
87
See e.g. ASZTALOS, A magyar burzsoá jog, op. cit., p. 453.; CSIZMADIA, A jogi hagyományok, op. cit., p. 35.
88
HORVÁTH, Attila, A polgári magyar magánjog történeti alapjai, 1848–1945, In: MEZEY, Barna (ed.), Magyar jogtörténet. 3
rd
ed., Budapest, 2004,
128–165., p. 131.
89
HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., pp. 55. and 191–192.
90
ZLINSZKY, Imre, A magyar magánjog mai érvényében, különös tekintettel a gyakorlat igényeire, Budapest, 1888, p. 54. See also ASZTALOS, A magyar burzsoá
jog, op. cit., pp. 463–464.
91
Ferenc Mádl (1931–2011), since 1973 professor of international private law at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, between 2000 and 2005 the
second President of the Republic of Hungary.
92
MÁDL, Magyarország elsõ polgári törvénykönyve, op. cit., p. 56.
93
As the romanist lawyer, Prof. András Földi remarks, the right to possess (ius possidendi) as a part of the “property trias” is not used in the AGBG, the
Austrian Code deals with the matter of possession separately. See FÖLDI, András, Adalékok a “tulajdonjogi triász” kérdéséhez, In: Acta Facultatis
Politico-Iuridicae Universitatis Budapestinensis, XLII (2005), 23–64., pp. 47–48. [Professor Földi himself prefers and recommends to use “right to have”
(ius habendi) instead of ius possidendi as a partial right of the owner. See Ibid., p. 62.]
94
ASZTALOS, A magyar burzsoá jog, op. cit., p. 457.
95
ZLINSZKY I., A magyar magánjog, op. cit., pp. 662–663.
109
2/2016
family members against the last will of the deceased) was gen-
erally accepted at that time, and it made possible only a very
cautious progress.
96
By the abolition of aviticitas, the principle of successio universa-
lis could finally take its place.
97
So, in theory, any person could
make a will concerning his entire personal property (not only
regarding the moveable assets and acquired goods, as by virtue
of the Tripartitum), but this right of disposition was far from un-
limited. Above all, the fee tail (fideicommissum),
98
introduced in
Hungary in the 17th century in order to keep the landed prop-
erty in one hand (characteristically through the enforcement
of the principle of primogenitura), had been maintained by the
Conference of the Justice of the Realm “in order to preserve the
light of the aristocratic families” (the splendor familiae).
99
Although having confirmed the abolition of aviticitas, the
Conference considered necessary to protect the interests of the
descendants against other potential legatees. Therefore, in case
of testate succession (and also concerning the gifts donated
by the deceased when alive),
100
the so-called “divisional por-
tion” (osztályrész) of the descendants was to be preserved, which
meant that they had to remain entitled at least to the half of
the assets.
101
Martyn Rady points out in his recently published
comprehensive book on Hungarian legal history, that the usage
of the word “divisional” instead of “obligatory” as the attribute
of portion (in Hungarian that would have been köteles rész) re-
flected “the vocabulary of aviticitas”.
102
Another institution in the inheritance law established by
the ITSz in order to protect the interests of the family was the
so-called “branch inheritance” (ági öröklés).
103
It meant that, in
case of lack of descendants, the property should be inherited by
that branch of the family from which the given assets had been
inherited by the legator (if a property was inherited from the
father, in case of no descendants, it would revert to the paternal
branch, and vice versa).
104
Ferenc Mádl simply called the branch inheritance (or at least
its unlimited form expressed in the Provisional Judicial Regu-
lations) in his already cited publication “a special remnant of
aviticitas”.
105
During the unsuccessful codification works in the
late 19th century, a draft bill on inheritance law prepared in
1881 by István Teleszky also urged to limit the branch inheritance
to the succession of siblings, but this proposal was strongly criti-
cised by leading conservative civilists like Béni Gros schmid, and
some years later the draft was withdrawn from the agenda.
106
2.6 Law of contracts
In the uncodified and quickly developing area of the law of
contracts, freedom of contract started to prevail, thanks to the
application of some specific norms on contracts of the Austrian
Civil Code by the Hungarian courts.
107
It meant that the par-
ties could decide at their own discretion whether (and with
whom) they wanted to enter into a contractual relationship,
and which type of contract, under what terms and conditions
they wanted to stipulate.
108
On the other hand, the late medieval formalities of contract-
ing, first applied to the contracts on noble lands, then adapted to
other legal relationships as well,
109
were largely replaced by the
principle of concurrence of wills (akarategység). It is easy to see
that, in lack of guarantees defined in legally binding norms, such
wide interpretation of freedom of contractual intention could
lead to abuses to the detriment of private persons (“consumers”
in the terms of our time) and some smaller economic operators.
3. Outlook: new phenomena in the economy
and social life of the late 19th century
and the end of the “Age of Freedom”
At the end of the 19th century, so already in the first decades
of the new, independent Hungarian private law, new phenom-
ena appeared in the economy and in the social life, which sud-
denly made the modern liberal principles of private law adapted
from the early 19th century civil codes out-of-date in some as-
pects. In the following, we would like to highlight three of these:
the conflicts deriving from unlimited private autonomy of the
“free owners”, the need of protection of the weaker parties in
contractual relationships, and the necessity of introduction of
a stricter liability in tort law.
96
ASZTALOS, A magyar burzsoá jog, op. cit., p. 497.
97
HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 341.
98
For more details see BÉLI, Magyar jogtörténet, op. cit., pp. 139–140., 322. and POMOGYI, Magyar alkotmány- és jogtörténeti kéziszótár, op. cit., pp.
177–178. A thorough analysis on the history of fideicommissum in Hungary is provided by Attila Tikász, notary public in Berettyóújfalu, see TIKÁSZ,
Attila, Kötött tulajdoni formák egykor és ma, Közjegyzõk Közlönye, 8 (2004), 3–12., pp. 3–9., and by the legal historian Zsuzsanna Peres in her recently
published dissertation: PERES, Zsuzsanna, A családi hitbizományok megjelenése Magyarországon, Pécs, 2014.
99
CSIZMADIA, A jogi hagyományok, op. cit., pp. 34–35.; TIKÁSZ, Kötött tulajdoni formák, op. cit., p. 3.
100
See ZLINSZKY I., A magyar magánjog, op. cit., pp. 770–771.
101
GROSSCHMID, Magánjogi elõadások, op. cit., pp. 210. and 652–653.; ZACHÁR, A magyar magánjog alaptanai, op. cit., p. 335. On the introduction of
the obligatory portion in Hungary see MÁZI, András, Adalékok a kötelesrész magyar országi bevezetéséhez, In: MEZEY, Barna – RÉVÉSZ, T. Mihály,
Ünnepi tanulmányok Máthé Gábor 65. születésnapja tiszteletére, Budapest, 2006, 341–350.
102
RADY, Customary Law in Hungary, op. cit., p. 227.
103
HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., pp. 341. and 343.
104
ASZTALOS, A magyar burzsoá jog, op. cit., pp. 457–458.; ZLINSZKY I., A magyar magánjog, op. cit., pp. 704–706.
105
MÁDL, Magyarország elsõ polgári törvénykönyve, op. cit., p. 56.
106
CSIZMADIA, A jogi hagyományok, op. cit., p. 37.
107
HOMOKI-NAGY, Mária, Megjegyzések a kartellmagánjog történetéhez, Versenytükör, Special Issue II (2016), 39–52., p. 41.
108
ASZTALOS, A magyar burzsoá jog, op. cit., p. 474.
109
HOMOKI-NAGY, Mária, Az adásvételi szerzõdés néhány sajátossága a 19. században, In: Jogtörténeti tanulmányok VIII., Pécs, 2005, 189–204., p. 190.
110
J E H L
3.1 Property law
The freedom of property in its original sense meant the entire-
ty of power (plena potestas) on the given goods, and included the
possibility of arbitrariness as well, to the detriment of other pri-
vate persons, or even of the public interest. According to Point 47
of Rerum Novarum, the famous encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII
on 15 May 1891, “the right to possess private property is derived
from nature, not from man; and the State has the right to control
its use in the interests of the public good alone, but by no means
to absorb it altogether”.
110
This new approach represented by
the Pope quickly found followers among legal scholars.
111
In Hungary, many laws introduced limitation of property
based on the principle of the protection of public interest (e.g.
law on water supply, mining law, etc.).
112
Another direction of
limitation was the recognition of the so-called jura in re aliena
(literally: “rights on others’ goods”), a legal term elaborated by
the German pandectists.
113
The Hungarian courts adapted this
category to relationships created by the force of law cautiously,
but some mandatory cases of servitude, usufruct and lien were
still established.
114
The third, most radical limitation of free property was expro-
priation, i.e. taking over someone’s property for the purposes of
public interest, which was regulated in separate written laws,
in a limited form already in 1836 (construction of railway and
drainage), then in a broader sense in 1868 (Acts LV and LVI
of 1868), and finally in general in 1881 (Act XLI of 1881).
115
A common characteristic of these laws and those regulating
other types of restrictions of property was that the right of own-
ership as a fundamental individual right could only be limited
in exceptional cases, and such cases had to be regulated by laws
(in the sense of acts of the Parliament). A further important as-
pect of expropriation is that the property could be taken against
“actual and complete compensation” only.
116
3.2 Law of contracts
In the law of contracts, the liberal interpretation of private
autonomy (freedom of contract in its entirety) started to create
conflicts by the appearance of large undertakings, such as banks
and insurance companies in the financial sector, or monopolis-
tic service companies (especially in the sector of public utili-
ties like water or electricity supply). These large corporations
started to apply standard contractual clauses (called blanketta in
the contemporary Hungarian terminology, now “general terms
and conditions”, in Hungarian: általános szerzõdési feltételek), and
some of them proved to be disadvantageous for the other, weak-
er contracting party.
117
On the other hand, while refusing to enter into a contract
is a natural part of the freedom of contract, if a monopolistic
company refuses from contracting, the customer would be kept
out of the enjoyment of the given service. The answer of the law
to these phenomena was the introduction of the obligation to
contract (obligation to provide services), and that in some spe-
cific laws the mandatory terms of contracts were also regulated.
Some norms dealing with this problem already appeared in the
Commercial Code of 1875,
118
but a more detailed regulation
is the development of the 20th century in this field of private
law as well.
In order to protect the contracting parties from the abuses of
each other, and primarily to provide remedy to the weaker party
against the terms and conditions applied by the stronger one,
the courts also started to apply the principle (general clause) of
“good faith and fairness” (jóhiszemûség és tisztesség).
119
According
to the famous Hungarian civilist, Károly Szladits, the contracts
infringing the principle of morality (jó erkölcs in the Hungarian
legal terminology, literally: “good morality”) are to be deemed
void, and so are the contracts contrary to public interest, both
because they are “indirectly breaching the law”.
120
A very good, though quite specific example of such practice
is the protection of free and fair competition. The Curia deemed
void the contracts having the purpose to restrict free competi-
tion as early as in 1893, and this decision was based on the
general clause of morality.
121
Another, very popular example
of this doctrine among the Hungarian law students is a deci-
sion of the Curia available in their reader, according to which
a contract regarding the operation of a brothel was deemed void
and consequently no claim could be based on it, for the services
that are subjects of the contract were considered as infringing
morality.
122
Later, the prohibition of unfair competition laid down by
Act V of 1923 set up an interesting special restriction of free-
110
Rerum Novarum. Encyclical of Pope XIII on capital and labour. See http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_
rerum-novarum.html [Accessed 14 July 2016]
111
HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 260.
112
KOLOSVÁRY, Bálint, A tulajdonjog, In: SZLADITS, Károly (ed.), A magyar magánjog 5., Dologi jog, Budapest, 1942, 102–321., p. 147. See also HOR-
VÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., pp. 261–264.; ZLINSZKY I., A magyar magánjog, op. cit., pp. 210–214.
113
NIZSALOVSZKY, Endre, Korlátolt dologi jogok, In: SZLADITS, Károly (ed.), A magyar magánjog 5., op. cit., 321–834, pp. 322.
114
ASZTALOS, A magyar burzsoá jog, op. cit., pp. 470–471.; HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., pp. 288–300.
115
RUSZOLY, József, A kisajátítás törvényi szabályozásának története Magyarországon (1836–1881), Acta Universitatis Szegediensis de Attila József Nomina-
tae, XXIV (1977), Fasc. 3., pp. 11–37.
116
Ibid., p. 28. See also ZLINSZKY I., A magyar magánjog, op. cit., pp. 209–210.
117
ASZTALOS, László, Az ellenforradalom államának joga. A magánjog és a kereskedelmi jog. In: CSIZMADIA, Andor – KOVÁCS, Kálmán – ASZTA-
LOS, László, Magyar állam- és jogtörténet, Budapest, 1972, 669–679., p. 673.; HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 312.
118
See e.g. Sections 422–433 of Act XXXVII of 1875 (Commercial Code) on rail transport transactions, http:// www.1000ev.hu/index.
php?a=3 & param=5692 [Accessed 14 July 2016]
119
ASZTALOS, Az ellenforradalom államának joga, op. cit., p. 674.; HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., pp. 314–316.
120
SZLADITS, A magyar magánjog vázlata 1., op. cit., pp. 154–155.
121
Case No. C. 8377/1893. See HOMOKI-NAGY, Megjegyzések, op. cit., p. 45.
122
Case No. C. 554/1906. See MEZEY, Barna (ed.), A magyar jogtörténet forrásai. Szemelvénygyûjtemény. Osiris Kiadó, Budapest, 2001, p. 669.
111
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dom of contract from the point of view of the content of the
agreements between undertakings.
123
According to Section 14,
it was prohibited to agree in a contract that the customer would
receive the given product or service only if he could recruit fur-
ther customers for the supplier. The contracts containing such
clause were called hólabda- (“snow ball…”) or lavinaszerzõdés
(“avalanche agreement”).
Beyond the protection of the general principle of fairness
and morality, in the crisis years after the First World War it
became especially important to recognise and enforce the non-
deterioration principle as well. A contractual interest stipulated
in a loan agreement, or a periodically payable fee (such as a rent
for example), could easily lose its value in a permanent relation-
ship, if the inflation gets high or other economic circumstances
occur that were not (and could not) be foreseen by the parties
at the time of concluding their contract.
The courts first chose to apply the principle of clausula re-
bus sic stantibus in such cases, establishing that the substantial
change in the business conditions rendered impossible (and
would make unfair) the further enforcement of the contrac-
tual obligations stipulated in a completely different economic
situation. This led to the conclusion that the contract could
be terminated and the parties had to settle the accounts with
each other.
124
Károly Szladits underlines in the revised edi-
tion of his book on Hungarian private law published in the
interwar period that the application of such principle must be
as exceptional as the circumstances were when it was elabo-
rated.
125
However, there was an even stronger (according to Attila
Horváth’s opinion, actually the strongest) intervention to the
private autonomy from the state (by law) or the courts (by
the provision of a court decision) for the same purpose of
maintaining the equivalence of the contractual services – the
amendment of the terms and conditions of contracts through
legislation or judgment. In such cases, the legislator or the
court protects the interest of the party aggrieved by the unpre-
dictable changes in a manner that it modifies the relevant term
of the contract, e.g. adjusts the amount of the rent to the new
economic environment or establishes a moratorium for loan
payment.
126
3.3 Tort law
Finally, in order to show the quick modernisation process
in the Hungarian private law, the question of liability for non-
contractual damages should also be investigated. As the famous
Hungarian romanist lawyer and civilist, Géza Marton estab-
lished, “the roots of the modern Hungarian tort law barely trace
back to the times before 1848”, and the formation thereof was
in major part the result of the application of the Austrian Civil
Code.
127
Until the mid-19th-century, an entire compensation
of damages (extended to lucrum cessans in addition to damnum
emergens) was ordered by the courts only in cases of intention-
ally caused damages.
The restoration of the effect of the Hungarian law in 1861
could not lead the courts back to this criminal-law-based ap-
proach. The influence of ABGB was kept, meaning in practice
that the principle of entire compensation of damages was ad-
opted by the Hungarian courts, in order to protect the property.
However, the liability for all damages was extended to the cases
of slight negligence not earlier than at the beginning of the 20th
century.
128
The Curia established in 1921 that in case of an
unlawful act, the injuring party had the obligation of full com-
pensation.
129
Another important development of the law of non-contractual
liability was that the strict (“objective”) liability was introduced,
first by the Railway Act (Act XVIII of 1874) for the operators
of the railway
130
and by the law on the protection of industrial
workers (Act XXVIII of 1893).
131
It led the jurisdiction to the
recognition of ”liability for dangerous activities”, saying that not
only the old, criminal law-based liability, but neither a liability
based on wrongful acts would be enough to balance the high lev-
el of risk of such activities (e.g. any kind of mechanical power)
concerning the property and personal safety.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Curia extended
the strict liability to other dangerous activities (like e.g. ships,
automobiles and other machine-powered vehicles) as well.
132
As a characteristic example, the supreme forum established
in 1910 that the motorcyclist as the operator of a “dangerous
activity” was liable for the damages deriving from an accident
caused by the very loud sound of his motorcycle that had fright-
ened the horse drawing a carriage.
133
Five years later the Curia
123
ASZTALOS, Az ellenforradalom államának joga, op. cit., p. 675.; HOMOKI-NAGY, Megjegyzések, op. cit., p. 47.
124
ASZTALOS, Az ellenforradalom államának joga, op. cit., pp. 673–674.; HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., pp. 316–317.; SZLADITS, Károly,
A magyar magánjog vázlata 2., 4
th
revised ed., Budapest, 1933, p. 103.
125
SZLADITS, A magyar magánjog vázlata 2., op. cit., p. 104.
126
HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 318.; SZLADITS, A magyar magánjog vázlata 2., op. cit., p. 150.
127
MARTON, Géza, A polgári jogi felelõsség, Budapest, 1993, p. 170.
128
HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 331.
129
Case No. C. 1632/1921. See SZENDE, Péter Pál (ed.), Kötelmi jog II. rész [Magyar magánjog mai érvényében. Törvények, rendeletek, szokásjog, jog-
gyakorlat, Vol. III.], Budapest, 1928, p. 552.
130
HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 331.; MARTON, A polgári jogi felelõsség, op. cit., pp. 170–171.; ZLINSZKY I., A magyar magánjog, op. cit.,
p. 544.
131
MARTON, A polgári jogi felelõsség, op. cit., p. 171.; PUSZTAHELYI, Réka, A veszélyes üzemi felelõsség egyes kérdései az új Ptk. rendszerében, In: Pub-
licationes Universitatis Miskolciensis. Sectio Juridica et Politica, XXXIII (2015), 306–325., p. 307.
132
MARTON, Géza, Kártérítési kötelmek jogellenes magatartásból, In: SZLADITS, Károly (ed.), A magyar magánjog 4., Kötelmi jog különös rész, Budapest,
1942, 781–942., p. 846.; SZLADITS, A magyar magánjog vázlata 2., op. cit., pp. 294–296. See also HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 332.;
PUSZTAHELYI, A veszélyes üzemi felelõsség, op. cit., p. 307.
133
Case No. C. 817/1910. See MEZEY (ed.), A magyar jogtörténet forrásai, op. cit., p. 670.
112
J E H L
made clear in a decision of principle that “it is a law based on
jurisdiction of the courts that the operator of an activity, which
is dangerous by nature, shall be liable for the damages deriving
thereof, regardless of his fault”.
134
3.4 The Draft Private Law Code of 1928
As we could see from this last example as well, in the evolu-
tion of the modern institutions of the Hungarian private law,
the role of the courts, and primarily that of the decisions of the
Curia, had the greatest importance.
135
Queen Maria Theresa
(1740–1780) was the first to order the systematic publication
of such resolutions (Planum Tabulare, 1769), while Act LIX of
1881 established the competence of the full court of the Curia
to decide in “disputed matters of principle”.
136
As there was no Civil Code in force in Hungary until 1 May
1960, the significance of these full-court decisions was indis-
putably the greatest in the field of private law. As we could see
above, in civil law cases the Curia not only interpreted the law
(as for example in criminal cases, where the Penal Code of 1878
had to be applied), but could form it, in many aspects simi-
larly to the jurisdiction of the common law courts. However,
the efforts of codification were continuous in the 20th century
as well.
The first draft code, consisting of four parts (1. Law of per-
sons and family law, prepared by Bertalan Lányi, Béni Gross-
chmid and László Sipõcz); 2. Property law, prepared by Konrád
Imling; 3. Law of contracts and tort law, prepared by Lajos Thir-
ring and Bertalan Lányi; 4. Inheritance law, prepared by Gusz-
táv Szászy-Schwarz)
137
was ready in 1900
138
– in the year of
entering into force of the famous German civil code, the BGB –
after two and a half decades of codification work, originally
ordered by the Minister of Justice Boldizsár Horvát in 1876.
139
The draft code itself was compiled between 1897 and 1900 by
a permanent committee of the Ministry of Justice, utilising the
sections prepared separately in the 1870’s and 80’s,
140
but – at
least partially – following the model of the German BGB as
well.
141
This draft was then revised and published in 1913 as the
“second version”,
142
and the Minister of Justice Jenõ Balogh
presented the third version (“the bill”) to the Parliament on 8
October 1913.
143
The ad-hoc committee set up by the Lower
House also proposed some modifications, and in 1915, al-
ready the fourth version (“the text of the committee”) was at
the table of the lawmakers.
144
The committee recommended
to the Parliament to debate it after the end of the war, but
in the years of revolutions and the Trianon peace treaty the
matter of private law codification obviously had a lower prior-
ity than the political and constitutional issues (“history fol-
lowed another course”, as professor of civil law Lajos Vékás
remarks).
145
The codification work could finally restart in 1922, as a part
of the consolidation process of the 1920’s marked with the
name of Prime Minister Count István Bethlen.
146
A new commit-
tee was appointed under the leadership of Béla Szászy (who had
already took part in the 1913 works as well, and now he was
the chairman of the committee in the quality of state secretary
of the Ministry of Justice) and consisted of leading civilists like
the already mentioned Béni Grosschmid, Károly Szladits and
Lajos Thirring.
147
They prepared a fifth, broadly revised ver-
sion in 1928,
148
that was also renamed, called now the Private
Law Code of Hungary (Magyarország Magánjogi Törvénykönyve)
instead of “Civil Code” (Polgári Törvénykönyv).
149
The new draft
was presented to the Parliament by Minister of Justice Pál Pesthy
on 1 March 1928.
150
134
Decision of Principle No. 547., 6743/1915. See SZENDE (ed.), Kötelmi jog II. rész, op. cit., p. 636.
135
BALOGH, Magánjog a XIX. század végén, op. cit., p. XVII.
136
VARGA, Norbert, The Practice of Leading Cases in the Hungarian High Court (Curia), with Special Attention to the Civil Procedure Act of 1911, In:
BADÓ, Attila – BELLING, Detlev W. (eds.), Rechtsentwicklungen aus europäischer Perspektive im 21. Jahrhundert, Potsdam, 2014, 281–289., pp. 282–283.;
ZLINSZKY I., A magyar magánjog, op. cit., pp. 36–38. [See Section 4 of Act LIX of 1881, substituting Section 5 of Act LIV of 1868 on the ordinance
of civil jurisdiction. Available in Hungarian: http://1000ev.hu/index.php?a=3 & param=6016 [Accessed 21 July 2016)]
137
A magyar általános polgári törvénykönyv tervezete, Budapest, 1900. Available online at https://archive.org/ details/amagyarltalnosp00hunggoog [Accessed 4
August 2016], for the authors see Pp. V–VI. of the Preface.
138
A magyar általános polgári törvénykönyv tervezete, Budapest, 1900.
139
HOMOKI-NAGY, A ma gyar magánjog kodifikációja, op. cit., p. 7.
140
VÉKÁS, The Codification of Private Law, op. cit., p. 58.
141
HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 108.
142
MÁDL, Magyarország elsõ polgári törvénykönyve, op. cit., p. 64.; see A magyar polgári törvénykönyv tervezete. Második szöveg. Budapest, 1913.
143
MÁDL, Magyarország elsõ polgári törvénykönyve, op. cit., p. 64.; see A polgári törvénykönyv törvényjavaslata. Az országgyûlés elé terjesztett szöveg.
Budapest, 1914. The bill was also published in the collection of Documents of the House of Representatives: Képviselõházi Irományok 1910, Vol. XXXI.,
pp. 1–392. [Document No. 886., the reasoning for the bill see in two separate volumes, XXXII. and XXXIII.]
144
HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 109.; MÁDL, Magyarország elsõ polgári törvénykönyve, op. cit., p. 64.; see Képviselõházi Irományok 1910,
Vol. XLVIII., pp. 249–640. [Attachment to Document No. 1192.] – We have to mention that “the bill” (third version) had practically the same wording
as the “second version”, so the “fourth version” of 1915 is the real third one. Following the numbering widely accepted in the Hungarian literature, we
will still call it the “fourth version”.
145
VÉKÁS, The Codification of Private Law, op. cit., p. 58.
146
Count István Bethlen (1874–1946), politician, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hungary between 1921 and 1931, in the 1930’s and 40’s the leader
of the conservative anti-fascist current.
147
HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 109.
148
HOMOKI-NAGY, A ma gyar magánjog kodifikációja, op. cit., p. 7.; VÉKÁS, The Codification of Private Law, op. cit., pp. 60.
149
Magyarország magánjogi törvénykönyve: A M. kir. Igazságügyminiszter által 1928. március 1-én az Országgyûlés elé terjesztett törvényjavaslat, Budapest, 1928. See
also in Képviselõházi Irományok 1927, Vol. VIII., pp. 2–577. [Document No. 500.]
150
Magyarország magánjogi törvénykönyve, op. cit. [Preface], p. III.; MÁDL, Magyarország elsõ polgári törvénykönyve, op. cit., p. 67.
113
2/2016
It is interesting to compare Section 1 of the original text of
the draft Civil Code (1900) to the later versions. The 1900 text
says: “The humans shall have legal capacity from their birth”
(“Az ember születésétõl kezdve jogképes”).
151
According to the 1913
text: “All humans shall have legal capacity from their birth”
(“Minden ember születésétõl kezdve jogképes”).
152
In the 1915 ver-
sion: “All humans shall have legal capacity. The foetus shall also
have legal capacity provided that he/she is born alive” (“Minden
ember jogképes. Jogképes a méhmagzat is arra az esetre, ha élve születik
meg”).
153
The difference is material: the amended rule creates
inheritance rights to posthumous children.
The Draft Private Law Code of 1928 literally repeats the
wording of this last (fourth) version of the draft Civil Code
(“Minden ember jogképes. Jogképes a méhmagzat is arra az esetre, ha
élve születik meg”), however not in Section 1 but seven sections
later (Section 8).
154
The explanation of this change of number-
ing is that, while the four versions of the draft Civil Code imme-
diately began with the rules of legal capacity as the first chapter
of law of persons, the codificators of the 1920’s inserted an
introductory part first (Bevezetõ szabályok, “Introductory provi-
sions”) as Sections 1–7, containing some basic principles and
general clauses.
155
Professor Vékás emphasises that the draft Private Law Code
of 1928 was “of a high professional standard”.
156
The Parlia-
ment adopted a law in 1931 (Act XXII of 1931) providing for
the setting up a National Committee (Országos Bizottság), con-
sisting of 30 members of the House of Representatives and 30
of the Upper House, “in order to prepare the parliamentary de-
bate of the bill containing the private law code of Hungary”.
157
This was quite a strange act of legislation: the lawmaker basi-
cally adopted a law on the necessity of making another law.
Nevertheless, the Draft Code “shared the fate of the Triparti-
tum”
158
– it has never been enacted.
The further story of the Draft Code – referred to by the pos-
terity with the popular abbreviation “Mtj.” (Magánjogi Törvény-
javaslat, literally: “Private Law Bill”)– was also very similar to
that of the Tripartitum (or the ITSz): the civil law courts began
to cite its sections as they would have been norms of the statute
law. “We have an uncodified code” – said the contemporary
lawyer Béla Reitzer.
159
This “uncodified private law code” was
a real masterpiece, and served in many (mainly unrecognised)
aspects as the basis of the first enacted Hungarian Civil Code
(Act IV of 1959) adopted under completely different political
circumstances.
160
151
A magyar általános polgári törvénykönyv tervezete, op. cit., p. 1.
152
Képviselõházi Irományok 1910, Vol. XXXI., op. cit., p. 1.
153
Képviselõházi Irományok 1910, Vol. XLVIII., op. cit., p. 249.
154
Magyarország magánjogi törvénykönyve, op. cit., p. 5.
155
HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., p. 110.; See Magyarország magánjogi törvénykönyve, op. cit., pp. 3–4.
156
VÉKÁS, The Codification of Private Law, op. cit., pp. 60.
157
See Section 1 of Act XXII of 1931. Available in Hungarian: http://1000ev.hu/index.php?a=3 & param=7881 [Accessed 9 August 2016]
158
MÁDL, Magyarország elsõ polgári törvénykönyve, op. cit., p. 67.
159
See HORVÁTH, A magyar magánjog, op. cit., pp. 110–111.
160
Ibid., p. 111. See also EÖRSI, Gyula, A magyar civilisztika 30 éve, Gazdaság- és Jogtudomány, 3–4 (1975), 301–314., p. 308.