László KŐHALMI, PhD
Associate Professor
Head of Criminology and Penal Law Department
University of Pécs, Law Faculty
Hungary
Dávid TÓTH, PhD
Lecturer
University of Pécs, Law Faculty
Hungary
Abstract:
The supposition that even jurisdiction can be influenced is undoubtedly a sensitive topic in democracies.
A certain kind of myth of intangibility hovers around the functioning of courts.
On the one hand, it is good, because the judicial power is one of the basic instruments of Rule of Law, and for this very reason it would be difficult for it to function within the crossfire of constant criticism – coming mainly from the political and executive powers –, on the other hand, the respect for courts cannot mean the negligence of critical realist thinking either.
The topic of judicial corruption counts both in foreign and in Hungarian literature as a rather poorly published matter.
This is partly because of the low number of cases, partly because of the latency.
Quis custodiet custodes? – Who watches over the shepherds? – I asked this question in the title of the study.
Who is entitled to check the course of justice?
Most of the jurisdiction does not provide for it substantially.
Presumably, the intense political manifestations are to be explained by it, which are to be observed in the politics or in the media in connection with certain court judgments of public interest.
International standards of judicial corruption cases show a high rate in the Latin countries.
This figure is in Hungary so negligible – only a few cases have become known since the change of the system in 1989 – that accepting the official crime statistics, it might not be worth dealing with this phenomenon, but from the point of view of crime prevention, this kind of prevention can necessarily be useful.
Corruption or the attempted intrusion into the independent and impartial functioning of judiciary can be assumed or perceived partly from the side of the executive power, partly from the side of the private sector.
In the following, this topic will be presented after a brief historical and theoretical overview.
 2014v2_A6.pdf | [Judicial Corruption – Quis custodiet costodes] | 258 kB | 2016-06-22 17:15 |
