Italian Law in Hungary (Diritto italiano in Ungheria (1861-2018))

Abstract

This article is counter-intuitive: if asked, most Hungarian lawyers would spontaneously and quite firmly point to German law as "the [dominant] model" and would either negate or be highly uncertain about the presence of legal influences stemming from the Apennine Peninsula. This notwithstanding that obviously there is no acid test for "measuring" to what such an uncritically presumed Germanic dominance amounts to, just as there is no foolproof tool for determining the extent to which Anglo-Saxon (common) laws gained foothold in this country after 1990 – though one should question, neither the supremacy of German law as a leading model, nor the growing presence of Anglo-Saxon influences in Hungary. This sui generis indeterminacy equally applies to our central query: the impact of Italian law and legal scholars on Hungary over the last century and half. It is of utmost relevance that so far no work seems to have even tried to map the multifarious inter-actions of the two legal systems. Textbooks containing a comparative law segment virtually uncritically take over from previous generations the depicted "conventional" wisdom eclectically referring to the works of a few established Italian scholars or suitable examples from Italian law (if at all). This article, in other words, cannot be but of exploratory and seminal nature. I took the pen to write this article with this commonly subscribed to presumption on mind notwithstanding that personally I have had more than usual contacts with Italian law and contemporary Italian scholars than the overwhelming part of Hungarian legal scholars. By the time I have reached to the end of this, otherwise time-wise pretty brief quest for traces from Italy in the realms of law, however, I had a change of hearts facing the collected evidences clearly showing a meaningful presence of Italian law and the influences of Italian scholars in Hungary. Even the most persistent objectors should recognize the weight of this – in Hungary undoubtedly counter-intuitive – claim, if faced with the list to follow; in particular as far as the data from the realms of Roman, canon, and criminal law as well as comparative law are concerned. 2. Given the seminal nature of this paper, it is quintessential to canvass briefly the factors that have inevitably affected research and thus the findings of this paper. From among these the historic-determinism of the Hungarian-Italian relations and the legal nature of the Hungarian legal system as well as a number of technical issues concerning the accessibility of legal sources in Hungary deserve special commenting.