T He History of Law Enforcement in Hungary

SUB LEGE LIBERTAS “Law enforcement is like an enormous mirror that projects the portrait of the all-time state embedded in its relevant legal structures. Using another image, we can also say that law enforcement is like a delicate seismograph The History that receives and pictures even the smallest stir, slue and twist of the idea of the state and its originating ideology.” These thoughts of József Tóth were first published in 1938 but are still relevant today. I wrote my book in of Law Enforcement this spirit attempting to review the history of the last more than one thousand years of national and international law enforcement. Such detailed work dealing with this issue has never been published yet. in Hungary I recommend this book to the students of the Department of Law Enforcement and the Doctoral School of the Department of Law Enforcement, as well as to the national and international researchers of this field. THE HISTORY OF LAW ENFORCEMENT IN HUNGARY IN ENFORCEMENT LAW OF HISTORY THE János Sallai: Sallai: János The work was created in commission of the National University of Public Service under the priority project PACSDOP-2.1.2- CCHOP-15-2016-00001 entitled “Public Service Development Establishing Good Governance.” JÁNOS SALLAI European Social Fund INVESTING IN YOUR FUTURE János Sallai The History of Law Enforcement in Hungary PB Korrektúrapéldány This page intentionally left blank PB Korrektúrapéldány János Sallai THE HISTORY OF LAW ENFORCEMENT IN HUNGARY Dialóg Campus Kiadó Budapest PB Korrektúrapéldány The work was created in commission of the National University of Public Service under the priority project PACSDOP-2.1.2-CCHOP-15-2016-00001 entitled “Public Service Development Establishing Good Governance.” Peer-reviewed by József Boda © Dialóg Campus Kiadó, 2018 © The Author, 2018 Reproduction is authorized, provided the source is acknowledged. PB Korrektúrapéldány Contents Contents 5 Introduction 7 1. The Emergence of Policing/Law Enforcement, its History in Ancient Times and in the Middle Ages 9 2. The Establishment of Modern Law Enforcement in Some Countries of Europe 21 3. The Establishment and History of Modern Law Enforcement in Hungary 29 3.1. The Establishment of Modern Law Enforcement in Hungary 29 3.2. The Development of Policing during the Period of the Dual (Austro–Hungarian) Monarchy (1867–1918) 47 3.2.1. Fire Safety and Border Policing 72 3.2.2. Győző Concha’s Work in the Field of Police Science 74 3.2.3. Emigration, Immigration, Passport Policing and the Regulation of the Border Police 82 3.2.4. Policing during World War I 100 4. Policing/Law Enforcement in the 20th Century, after World War I 107 4.1. Policing/Law Enforcement during World War II 133 4.2. Policing/Law Enforcement after World War II 138 Conclusion 159 Bibliography 161 PB Korrektúrapéldány This page intentionally left blank PB Korrektúrapéldány Introduction In the socialist era, due to the continuous denial of the past, no research was conducted on the history of Hungarian law enforcement or the police force. In the years following the change of the system, several attempts were made by former law enforcement officials, who were interested in the history of the profession and by the civil organisations founded by them to fill this gap. The result of this process was the publishing of a significant number of studies and books. However, in secondary and higher law enforcement education, the topic was taught only sporadically and at times. The introduction of the 4-year Bachelor of Arts (BA) programme made a significant change, which included the history of law enforcement, and the history of police science to be involved in the MA training. The development of modern policing in Hungary in the second half of the 19th century was strongly influenced by similar German phenomena. It was then that the first works of Ágoston Karvasy, Emil Récsi and Ignác Zsoldos were published, which already included the first concepts of policing/ law enforcement and of Polizeywissenschaft (the science of public policy), the organisational structure and tasks of the police, etc. Nevertheless, the first heralds of 19th century modern European policing are undoubtedly related to the French and German areas. Policing is rooted in the ancient Roman Empire and the origin of the word policing comes from ancient Greece. More precisely, it comes from the Greek word politeia, although its old meaning cannot be identified with the police and policing of our time. In the 14th century the French la police meant ‘state goal’, ‘well-ordered public life’ (public order, public morals) in a narrower sense and ‘state administration’ in a wider sense. It was at the same time that Polizey and later, in the 15th century Polizie spread from France to the German Law as ‘ius politiae’. Later, the concept of policing was formulated for the first time in the Allgemeines Landrecht (General State Laws), published in 1794. In Hungary, the word rendőr (police officer, the guardian of order) occurred for the first time in József Márton’s German–Hungarian student’s encyclopaedia in 1823, as a translation of the German Polizei–Landreiter. In the same dictionary, polizei meant ‘közbátorság’ (hereinafter: public PB Korrektúrapéldány 8 The History of Law Enforcement in Hungary bravery, i.e. the inalienable right, wish and acts of the public to have public order), an expression frequently used in the books of Ágoston Karvasy, too. In 1833 János Fogarasi uses the Hungarian word rendőr in its today’s sense in his book Student/Latin–Hungarian Terminology. The Hungarian word ‘(köz) rendészet’ ([public] policing) becomes widely known in Ágoston Karvasy’s book published in 1862; first it appeared as an entry in the 1870 edition of Czuczor’s and Fogarasi’s Hungarian dictionary as follows: “rend-ész • noun • a newly created word. In the sense of the foreign “Polizei” – as science, that is, as police knowledge.” At the same time, on the cover of the first professional policing periodical entitled Közbiztonság (Public Order), first published in 1869, we can already see the expression rendészetelméleti (of the theory of policing). On the pages of the same periodical, chief editor József Forster affirmed his commitment to police science, when writing: “whatever system should the reorganisation of the police force be based upon, it will only perform its mission if police officials also receive theoretical training in ‘rendészeti tudomány’ (policing science).” Thus, in all prob- ability, this was the first time that the Hungarian term rendészettudomány (police science) had been used. The aim of this book is to review and present the important milestones of the history of policing/law enforcement,1 from the ancient Greeks and Romans to our time. 1 In this book, this expression will refer to activities of both the police and all law enforcement organisations. PB Korrektúrapéldány 1. The Emergence of Policing/Law Enforcement, its History in Ancient Times and in the Middle Ages To discuss policing/law enforcement, first we need to clarify the meaning of the expression. According to Hungarian and European experts alike, the civil code of Prussia, the earlier mentioned Allgemeine Landrecht für die Preußischen Staaten (General State Laws for the Prussian States, often abbreviated as AL), promulgated in 1794, was the first document to formulate the concept of policing/law enforcement in a way that is acceptable even today. The AL says: “The task of policing/law enforcement is to ensure public peace, public safety and public order as well as to take the necessary measures in order to avert the threats posed to the public or its individual members.” Thus, we can conclude that policing/law enforcement is the averting of dangers and the maintenance of public order and safety. Judging from the concept, it is obvious that policing/law enforcement has always been present in the life of mankind, as prehistoric men already made sure that their cabin would not be swept away by the flood or that they would not fall victim to fires. Although we do not have written sources from prehistoric times, only paintings and material remains, we can state that policing/law enforcement probably came into being in the age of primitive communism, while its written codification must be related to the dissolution of primitive communities and the emergence of the first states. This was the period of history when smaller communities, villages were formed, certain groups of people were separated from each other, property based stratification began, and there was a serious need for the local organisation of everyday life, which later spread to larger and larger areas. This was how the first states were established, which gathered the groups of people located next to each other and tried to organise their life and meet the daily challenges. These challenges were mainly related to the need for providing the conditions of life and to guaranteeing the security of the state. Considering the content of policing/law enforcement in the age of the ancient states, from the early times it was fire that posed a threat to the citizens, their houses and the cities. Probably this is the reason why the elements PB Korrektúrapéldány 10 The History of Law Enforcement in Hungary of fire safety regulations can be found in almost all of these states. In Egypt, for example, the citizens were obliged to have buckets2 and water ready at hand in case of fire. In ancient Greek city-states3 churches were given special protection; it was prohibited to light fires even in their neighbourhood. The management of this problem was even more interesting in China, a country that displayed isolationist behaviour for several thousand years, still they already had ‘fire police officers’ and institutionalised4 fire fighter organisations.

Load more