Dr. BAKA András
President of the Supreme Court and the National Council of Justice

BAKA András was born on 11 December 1952. Having completed his law studies at Eötvös Loránd University, he received his degree with "summa cum laude" qualification in 1978. He became a candidate of state and legal sciences in 1988. In March 1988 he was awarded the Junior Prize of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences for his outstanding research work.

From 1978 to 1990 he was a research fellow and a senior research fellow at the Institute for Legal Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, his research focused on the emergence of minority rights in national and international law and on the issues of the constitutional protection of human rights. Between 1990 and 1998 he was director general, professor and head of department at the School of Public Administration, which, in 2003, following the reorganisation of higher education, was incorporated into Corvinus University (Budapest).

On 23 April 1991 he was appointed judge of the European Court of Human Rights in respect of Hungary, and, having been re-elected twice, in 1998 and 2001, he held this office up to 31 January 2008. He was vice-president of one of the sections of the Court and was re-elected twice, in 2001 and 2004, in this post. He took part in the consideration of several thousand cases, among them more than 3000 Hungarian cases, he held hearings, and was delegated by the Court to carry out on-site investigations in various countries. Taking part in the work of the administrative bodies and committees of the Court, he cooperated in court administration as well.

Following the termination of his mandate, on 15 April 2008 he was appointed judge at the Budapest Court of Appeal. On 22 June 2009 the Parliament elected him President of the Supreme Court of Hungary.

Since 1979 he has been a scholarship and research fellow and invited professor at several universities in Europe (Belgrade, Amsterdam, Strasbourg and Geneva) and in the United States (Washington - Library of Congress, Charlottesville - University of Virginia, Berkeley - University of California, New York - Columbia University and Santa Clara - Santa Clara University). Between 1986 and 1990 he was a regular speaker at the annual conferences of the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg.



Dr. ERMÉNYI Lajos
Vice-President of the Supreme Court

ERMÉNYI Lajos was born in 1950 in Szeged. Having completed his law studies at the University of Szeged, he received his degree in 1974. Between 1974 and 1977 he worked as a trainee at the Tribunal of Szeged and then, after passing the professional exam, in 1977 he became a court secretary at the same tribunal. On 1 January 1978 he was appointed judge at the Tribunal of Makó, where he examined civil cases. In July 1978 he was transferred to the Tribunal of Győr and from August 1979 he examined appellate cases at the County Court of Győr.

From 1987 he worked at the Judicial Division of the Ministry of Justice where he was promoted year by year, becoming in 1990 a division head in the Justice Management Department of the Ministry of Justice.

In 1994 the President of the Republic appointed him judge at the Supreme Court, where he heard economic cases. In 1998 the National Council of Justice transferred him to its own office, where he worked as the head of the Management Department. Upon his own request the Council terminated his service relation at the office in 2002, whereupon he resumed his judicial activities as a member of the Civil Department at the Supreme Court. In 2006 he was promoted head of chamber and the same year he was appointed Secretary General of the Court, answering the responsibilities of sentencing and management simultaneously from that time on. From 2008 on he also acted as the head of the Supreme Court Branch of the Hungarian Association of Judges.

On 15 November 2009, upon the proposal of the President of the Supreme Court of Hungary and obtaining the opinion of the National Council of Justice, the President of the Republic appointed him Vice-President of the Supreme Court for six years.



Dr. KOZMA György
Head of the Administrative Department

KOZMA György was born on 7th August 1949 in Budapest. He graduated at the University of Pécs, Faculty of Law in 1978, and after he passed his professional examination as legal counsel.

In 1978 he started his career in the Ministry of Light Industries, from 1980 until 1986 he served at the Administrative and Legal Department of the Ministry of Industry as legal counsel. He was appointed head of division in 1986, and vice head of department in 1988. Between 1980 and 1990 he represented the Ministry as a government agent before the courts and other state authorities.

On 1st April 1990 he was appointed judge at the Administrative Department of the Supreme Court. He became head of chamber upon temporary mandate on 1st of November 1994, shortly after he was appointed head of chamber on 1st of July 1995. From 1993 onwards he has been assisting the Administrative Department in organizing and coordinating its theoretical guiding activities. As a member of the uniformity chamber, he has been preparing several court opinions and uniformity decisions. On 1st of February 2008, he was appointed head of the Administrative Department by the National Council of Justice for a period of six years.

He is an elected member of the second instance disciplinary tribunal of the Supreme Court. He is a founding member of the Association of Hungarian Administrative Judges.

Since 1986 he has been participating in the work of the professional examination committee, specialized in economic law and later in administrative law. Upon request of the examination committee, he contributed to the preparation of examination papers in the field of administrative law. Since 1979 he has been broadly involved in scientific and educational activities. Between 1979 and 1985 he was invited lecturer at the School of State Administration. He was a founding member of the Deák Ferenc Post-graduate Training Institute of Law in 1992 in Budapest. As secretary general, he was in charge of organizing the scientific and educational activities of the Training Institute, as well as preparing the post-graduate training program offered to lawyers of different specialization. From 1998 he has been giving lectures as assistant professor at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Faculty of Law. He also took part in the establishment of the Faculty's Post-graduate Training Institute, and until 2004 he was coordinating the post-graduate training programs as deputy head of the Institute. He has been examining graduate students at final examinations of the Chair in Administrative Law.

He has been the author or co-author of several works on civil society organizations, foundations, local self-governments, public sector tenders, and that of commentaries on civil and administrative procedural rules. Upon request of the Office of the National Council of Justice in 1999, he prepared a methodological guidebook for administrative judges. Furthermore, he has been giving lectures within the framework of further training programs provided for judges.

In 2006 he was awarded the Deák Ring, subsequently in 2007 he received the Juhász Andor Prize.

Kónya István was born in 1954 in Budapest. Graduating from the Faculty of Law with cum laude qualification in 1979, he became a trainee at the Military Court of Budapest. In 1981 he was appointed judge and he started his judicial career at the Military Court of Szeged (a town in the southern part of Hungary), where he dealt with military crimes, crimes of traffic, crimes against life, office and property. In 1991 he was appointed judge at the Supreme Court, where he has been head of chamber since 2000. In 2002 the National Council of Justice appointed him head of the Criminal Department of the Supreme Court. In 2008 he was re-appointed head of the Criminal Department for a period of six years.

Since 1997 he has been an examiner of the professional exam committee. He is president of the committee of state exam at the Faculty of Law in Szeged. He is co-author of the Commentary to Hungarian Criminal Law and the Commentary to the Rules of Criminal Procedure. Since 1998 he has been a member of the editorial board of Court Decisions and since 2002 that of the Official Corpus of Supreme Court Decisions, both are publications of the Supreme Court. He has participated in passing twenty uniformity decisions, out of which he was the judge rapporteur of five cases.

WELLMANN György was born in 1954. He graduated from the Faculty of Law in Budapest in 1978 and was awarded a degree with 'summa cum laude' qualification. He started his professional career as a trainee prosecutor and having passed the professional exam in 1980, he worked as a prosecutor in civil cases at the Municipal Prosecutor's and the Prosecutor General's Office. In 1987 he was deputy head of the Legal Department of the Ministry of Finance. He joined the judiciary in 1988 when he was elected a judge at the Supreme Court. Since then he has been a member of the Civil Department hearing various cases of contractual law. In February 2002 he was appointed head of chamber, and at the same time the deputy head of the Civil Department for a period of six years. In February 2008 the National Council of Justice appointed him head of the Civil Department. In this post he manages the professional activity of the economic, civil and labour branches of the Civil Department.

In the years of 1988 and 1997 he took part in drafting the acts on business associations and he is again a member of the codification committee working on the new act on business associations. For two decades now he has been regularly publishing studies in the field of civil and corporation law in professional periodicals and he has been the co-author of more than ten professional books and commentaries. He has been a member of the editorial board of the periodical entitled Economy and Law for years, and since 2004 he has been a member of the editorial board of the two periodicals of the Supreme Court (Court Decisions and Official Corpus of Supreme Court Decisions).

He gave lectures at the Department of Civil Law at the University of Law in Budapest throughout seven years. He is at present a member of the state examination committee in the field of civil law at two faculties of law in Budapest. Since 1988 he has been participating in post-graduate training as a lecturer in the field of corporation law at the Post-graduate Training Institute of Law in Budapest. In 2003 he was awarded the title 'honorary assistant professor' for his educational activities. For almost twenty years he has been a member of the professional exam committee. He is a member of the Hungarian Lawyers' Association and the Association of Hungarian Judges.

TÖRÖK Judit was born in 1953 in Debrecen. She accomplished her law studies at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest in 1976. Having passed the professional exam in 1978, on 1 January 1979 she was appointed judge in charge of civil cases at the Local Court of Vác. From 1985 to 1988 she worked at the Local Court of Szombathely as a civil law judge and in 1988 she moved to the Municipal Court of Budapest, where she examined cases of liquidation, administrative cases and from 1991 she heard contract cases and cases of business associations at the second instance. In 1993 she was entrusted with disciplinary cases of public notaries for a period of three years at the Municipal Court of Budapest. In 1995 she was transferred to the economic department of the Supreme Court and following her successful application she was appointed judge at the Supreme Court on 1 October 1995. In 2002 she was promoted head of chamber in the civil department of the Court and on 1 November 2009 she was appointed deputy head of the civil department for six years.

In the course of her judicial work she has become familiar with numerous fields of law, including family law, contract law, the law of business associations, bankruptcy and liquidation. Regular professional training is an integral part of her work. She regularly attended the English language courses and the courses of European civil and commercial law organised formerly by the National Council of Justice, and later on by the Hungarian Judicial Academy. In order to acquire up-to-date methodology, she completed a course for trainers at the Academy in 2007. She has been a regular participant in the events of the European Commercial Judges Forum since 2003. In May 2007 she took part in a European comparative law course organised by the General Council of the Judiciary of Spain. In April 2008 she had the opportunity to examine the functioning of the judicial system of Great Britain due to a scholarship of the European Judicial Training Network. She is a regular trainer at the courses of the Hungarian Judicial Academy in the field of bankruptcy and liquidation procedures, and she is a lecturer in the field of insolvency law at the Civil Procedure Department of Eötvös Loránd University and Deák Ferenc Postgraduate Institute of Pázmány Péter Catholic University. She has been the co-author of several handbooks on bankruptcy and liquidation procedures. She has been a member of the professional exam committee since 2003 and she is a member of the Hungarian Association of Judges, as well as of the Association of Economic Judges.