A legalitás és az officialitás elvének jogirodalmi és joggyakorlati értelmezése

The roots of criminal law date back to Ancient times, when in order to live together in peace and harmony, individuals gave the community full criminal authority and ius puniendi became a state monopoly. It results from this that today’s criminal procedure is governed by the principle of legality (or the principle of mandatory prosecution as some might call it) in most EU Member States as well as in Hungary and this is why it is of upmost importance to understand its true meaning. On one hand, it shall ensure that the state’s punitive authority is being enforced, on the other it can also be seen as a manifestation of the equality before the law in criminal matters. However significant it is, there are many different – both academic and practical – interpretations of the principle of legality regarding its addressee and substance, and the topic is widely discussed. By the example of the Hungarian Codes of Criminal Procedure and the case-law of the Constitutional Court of Hungary, some of these views are shown, with particular attention to the strong statutory connection of the principle of legality and the ex officio principle in Hungarian criminal procedure. This paper aims to resolve the above-mentioned contradictions with the introduction of a new systematic interpretation, which takes most prior opinions into account