National Laboratory
for Health Security
HUNGARY

A korlátozott precedensrendszer hatása a kúriai ítéletek hivatkozásaira: Hálózattudományi elemzés

Abstract: Judicial practice plays a crucial role in the functioning of the legal system, particularly in areas where the content of general rules is shaped by judicial practice. Researching and learning about judicial practice is an important task of legal work and an important source of legal reasoning. This paper draws on international literature to present the results of network research and judicial practice and precedents. The main features of the Hungarian limited precedent system are also described, and then the reference network of Hungarian judicial practice, civil and commercial case law, is analysed. The research is topical because of the introduction of the limited precedent system, as this method allows us to show the context of judicial practice which is also useful for jurisprudence, as it provides a kind of map of judicial practice and thus of precedent decisions on a given legal issue. The research will first examine the reference network of the Curia’s decisions, then analyse the same in the legal reasoning of the Curia’s decisions, and finally compare the reference dynamics of precedent-setting decisions and the so called edited decisions. In conclusion, the introduction of a limited precedent system in the legal reasoning of the Curia decisions has significantly increased the average number of references to unedited decisions other than edited decisions. It can also be concluded that the increase in the number of references to unedited decisions has not diminished the role of redacted decisions. The reasons for the use of edited decisions include the searchability of decisions and the editing of decisions in general (shortening and highlighting the legal substance), as well as the identification of the points of principle, ratio decidendi. Using network research methods, the study will show the dynamics and trends in the practice of citation.