The crimes of armed robbery and robbery with a deadly weapon have always been the most pervasive, harmful crime against property in Hungary and are mostly associated with male perpetrators since. However, there are also female perpetra­tors committing the crimes of armed robbery or robbery committed with a deadly weapon. Despite the availability of the judicial decisions in the public judicial database, the characteristics of these female perpetrators – including their motiva­tions and the judicial procedures – have never been analysed. This paper will look into how female perpetrators mostly act together with male perpetrators and mostly motivated by financial difficulties. The females in question are almost exclusively adults outside of a domestic relationship and are not parents. They typically have a low­level education, and as a result have lower­paying blue­collar jobs.

Under the provisions of Act I of 2017 on the Code of Administrative Court Procedure, a brand new institution has been introduced in Hungary: as of 1 January 2018, in administrative court proceedings, the judge may, with the agreement of the parties, allow for a court mediation procedure in the cases in which the law does not preclude it. The primary method to approach the topic is the review of the relevant primary legal sources [actual law in the form of the constitution (Fundamental Law of Hungary), acts, governmental decrees, orders of the President of the National Office, court cases, etc.] and secondary legal sources (Hungarian and international scientific literature explaining the primary sources, the legal practice and also the specific circumstances determining the broader social environment) through which we may define relevant scientific problems, create our own definitions and prepare a catalogue of practical problems, specifically for Hungarian issues regarding the topic. Moreover, this article tries to build on the results of the interviews with judges, representatives of different defendants (administrative authorities) and others. Qualitative interviewing, including the interviewing of judges and other participants of such proceedings, is a relatively new method in the field of legal studies, at least in Hungary.

Primary elections are a new element in the ‘periodical table’ of Hungarian politics and were already used for the selection candidates in some instances in 2019. In preparation for the upcoming parliamentary elections in 2022, a cooperation scheme is taking shape among opposition parties, involving all currently decisive players on that political side. Entailing a scope broader than ever before, this cooperation also involves the organisation of primary elections for selecting the candidate for the Prime Minister and the candidates in single-member constituencies. The primaries are organised by the six opposition parties running together in the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election. If held, it would be the first countrywide primary election in Hungary. This study looks beyond the specific solutions that may be applied in relation to the upcoming primaries. It provides a working definition of the term itself, briefly reviews the international and Hungarian antecedents of primaries, also outlining the reasons why this solution came to the fore in Hungary. Then the study sets out to predict the ‘evolutionary trajectory’ along which primary elections will become institutionalised here, spelling out the potential phases of development. In the latter context, this paper touches on the private law and public law implications of primaries and raises a scenario in which government parties also begin to apply this new political tool.

In our presentation, we review the procedure and method of meeting the electoral bodies of different (mainly European) countries – in particular the issue of ensuring the publicity and extent to which they can operate online. In addition, we examine in more detail the practice and procedural method of the Hungarian electoral bodies, in particular the National Election Commission. Based on the above, we also outline the possibilities for the further development of Hungarian practice. Our main findings: it is clear that although online meetings of election commissions are still used only in several countries, but the COVID-19 epidemic has highlighted the need to open up to the online space not only in the election process but also in the practice of individual election bodies. The regulations of the Hungarian National Election Commission define the rules of online meetings in great detail. This makes Hungary one of the few EU countries where it is possible to meet by videoconference. In our opinion, this direction will become decisive in the EU countries in the coming years. Moreover, we do not consider it inconceivable that the entire electoral process (including remote voting) should be digitised, as is the case in Estonia. However, this still requires many steps to be taken by individual countries to increase voter confidence in digitisation. For now, however, we have to be satisfied with one of the positive benefits of the COVID-19 epidemic: the ability to online meetings of election commissions.

The author offers an analysis of the controversial Israeli Nation-State Law of 2018 and B. Netanyahu’s involvement in its adoption. He claims that its ideas manifest Netanyahu’s desire to depart from the state-centred, social democratic, and liberal views advocated by Ben Gurion. This desire stems from his strong disagreement with Israel’s founder’s claim and belief that secularism is a guarantee that Israel does not fall into the same trap as the leaders of the bicentennial Crusades – which ultimately failed. The author of the paper makes an insightful comparison of this law with the contents of Point 13 of Thomas Woodrow Wilson’s 1918 plan – a docu-ment from exactly 100 years before, designed to shape Europe after victory in the war against Russia, Prussia, and Austria-Hungary, on whose lands an independent Polish state was to be established.

The author offers an analysis of the controversial Israeli Nation-State Law of 2018 and B. Netanyahu’s involvement in its adoption. He claims that its ideas manifest Netanyahu’s desire to depart from the state-centred, social democratic, and liberal views advocated by Ben Gurion. This desire stems from his strong disagreement with Israel’s founder’s claim and belief that secularism is a guarantee that Israel does not fall into the same trap as the leaders of the bicentennial Crusades – which ultimately failed. The author of the paper makes an insightful comparison of this law with the contents of Point 13 of Thomas Woodrow Wilson’s 1918 plan – a docu-ment from exactly 100 years before, designed to shape Europe after victory in the war against Russia, Prussia, and Austria-Hungary, on whose lands an independent Polish state was to be established.

Although the 1928 Civil Code Project never came into force, it is considered to be the most important pre-WWII civil codification instrument, referred also in the legal practice, which was undeniably a high quality text with real scientific value. The proposed Civil Code also served as a model and point of reference for the two subsequent Hungarian Civil Codes (Law IV of 1959 and Law V of 2013, the later still in force). The project signaled the passing the borderline between a historical customary law and a codified private law. Its fate reflects all the difficulties of this transition. Conjuring this development and knowing the fate of this still of practical use today: on one hand we can identify the historical roots of continuity, on other hand we can investigate the reasons of discontinuity, which makes this debate very actual.

A number of representative polls have been conducted on the death penalty in recent decades. There were some surveys whose authors were interested not only in the percentage of supporters and opponents of the death penalty, but also in whether this rate varies in different strata of society. Several polls were conducted, in which, in addition to socio-cultural factors, respondents were asked about their general attitudes and some research was also conducted in order to uncover the reasons behind the responses of the interviewees. From all of this, one can gain a clear picture as regards the socio-cultural characteristics of people in general, who are more in favour of the death penalty, as well as regarding what general ttitudes respondents have and for what reasons they formed their views. The subsequent presentation of the Hungarian surveys will help one to see whether distance in time affects the perception of the social need for capital punishment, and how such need changes over time. Overall, the aim of this study is to present a comprehensive human approach to the death penalty; that is, the goal is not to examine
how many people have supported or opposed the death penalty in a particular country in a given period of time, but to find out what factors influence commitment to or against capital punishment and the causes thereof, and what factors can change people’s attitudes towards the death penalty.