The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court

According to Article 47 of the Constitution as amended by Act LIX of 1997, the Supreme Court is the highest judicial authority of the Republic of Hungary. It guarantees the uniform application of law, its decisions on uniform jurisdiction are binding for other courts. Based on Articles 24-25 of the Act on the Organisation and Administration of the Courts, the functions of the Supreme Court are manifold:

- it adopts uniformity decisions, which are binding for all other courts; - it reviews final decisions if these are challenged through an extraordinary remedy; - as a court of second instance it examines appeals submitted against the decision of the county courts and the regional courts of appeal in cases defined by law; - it carries out other duties referred to its authority by law (such duties cover for example cases of discipline heard by the disciplinary courts of first and second instance of the Supreme Court.)

As laid down in Act XI of 1987 on Legislation, the Supreme Court takes part also in codification. Article 28 of this act provides that bills and drafts of government decrees shall be referred to the President of the Supreme Court if they touch upon the jurisdiction of the courts. The Court often gives expert opinion on the drafts of legal provisions and its judges regularly participate in the work of codification committees.

Fulfilling its responsibility of ensuring the uniform application of law and of providing judicial guidance to lower courts, the Supreme Court passes uniformity decisions and issues decisions of theoretical importance. A uniformity procedure leading to a uniformity decision may take place whenever
- the development and uniformity of judicial practice requires the adoption of a uniformity decision in a matter of principle, or
- a chamber of the Supreme Court intends to deviate from the decision taken by another chamber of the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court also examines applications for review of final judgements as extraordinary remedy. Following Recommendation R(95)5 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, Act CV of 2001, which entered into force in January 2002, restricts the possibilities for exceptional review. An application for the review of a final judgement may be submitted only if the contested judgement infringes legal provisions which significantly influenced the merits of the case, and if the decision differs from the uniformity decisions of the Supreme Court or if exceptional review is required to unify and develop judicial practice.

For the information of all administrators of justice the publication of the Supreme Court's decisions is extremely important. First of all, together with the laws of the country, the international treaties, the decisions and resolutions of the Parliament and the Government and the decisions of the Constitutional Court, every uniformity decision passed by the Supreme Court is published in the Hungarian Official Journal. Beside this, in The Official Corpus of Supreme Court Decisions, which appears twice yearly, the Supreme Court has the right to issue decisions on principle. These are judgements passed by the chambers of the Supreme Court in various cases and are selected for publication with a view to unify the interpretation of law because the solution of the relevant legal dispute is considered theoretically significant. In addition, the Supreme Court publishes every month the Court Decisions, which contain all the judgements of the Court and a selection of the decisions of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights.