The Stages of Criminal Procedure in the First Third of the 18th Century

Abstract

The customary-law-based criminal procedure can be reconstructed with the aid of written legal sources (sporadic Acts, Praxis Criminalis, Criminal Instruction), codification outputs (proposal of 1712), procedural law literature (János Kitonich, János Szegedi), criminal law manuals (István Huszty, Gábor Gochetz, Mátyás Bodó) and judicial practice. Praxis Criminalis (and Criminal Instruction) dealt with the preparatory procedure and means of proof (e.g. torture). The literature combined these rules with Hungarian procedural law, hence the appearance of trial. In the eighteenth century, criminal proceedings typically comprised three to five stages: preparatory procedure (inquisitio generalis and specialis), indictment (applicable only to nobles), trial before court, appeal (reserved for nobles) or pardon (granted only rarely) and execution. It can be seen that Hungarian customary law has adopted only some elements of the inquisitorial procedure.