The Map of Historical Hungarian Private Law Based on Béni Grosschmid’s Public Law Thoughts

Abstract

One of the peculiarities of Hungary’s legal history is that its legal system was determined by the dominant role of historical law until the mid-20th century. Hungary did not have a constitution of the charter type as the basis of the legal hierarchy until 1949, and did not have a Civil Code, the fundamental act of the civil law, until 1959. The picture is further clouded by the fact that a constitutional system adopted under the rule of law had to wait until 1989, formally until 2012, likewise the Civil Code until 2013. However, this did not mean that Hungarian law was „unwritten” law, quite the contrary. Hungarian law was characterised by a multiplicity of sometimes particular rules with medieval or post-medieval roots, situated at different levels of the legal hierarchy, with a prominent role for customary law. In addition to these, of course, the laws enacted by the legislature played an increasingly important role in Hungary, which was founded on the foundation of equality of rights established on the basis of the constitutional revolution of 1848, until the communist takeover and the era of private law without private property. This diversity made the historical Hungarian private law distinctive, which was taught and cultivated to a high practical and theoretical standard, and in which one of the greatest Hungarian jurists of the 19th and 20th centuries, Béni Grosschmid, judge, lawyer, university professor, academician, royal court councillor, played a prominent role. His ideas and the private law system approach he outlined are still valid today and can serve as a guideline and basis of lege artis pactice.