Detours in Hungarian administrative criminal justice

Abstract

One of the key directions of change in the Hungarian administrative sanctioning system is represented by a shift from the classic, subjective sanctions that are difficult to be enforced by the authorities towards objective sanctions. This change has impacted the offenses established by the local governments specifically, which revived first in the form of decrees regulating anti-social behaviors, and subsequently that of peaceful public coexistence and the sanctions included therein. The process was also supervised by the Constitutional Court, however, the antecedents reach all the way back to the period preceding the change of regime in Hungary, when the legislator at first attempted to preserve the unity of offenses, which may be seen as a melting pot of numerous anti-administrative and petty crimes; then subsequently we could witness a degree of restoration despite all efforts in which the offenses have again assumed the characteristics of criminal law. This paper provides an overview of the process that led not necessarily to the complete withdrawal of the Hungarian offense law but its termination in the classic sense of the term, while the elements of the legal institution continue to live on as other types of administrative sanctions and helped the institution of administrative criminal law survive.