European Court of Human Rights (ECHR, Strasbourg) 

Applications to the ECHR, located in Strasbourg, France, for a determination that a fundamental right was violated by any one of the 27 member states of the European Union, or by any one of 20 other state parties, can be lodged by any individual or organisation. The applicant does not need to be a citizen of the respondent state, of the EU or of any state party, and applicant corporations do not need to be incorporated in Europe. An application should be lodged only after the applicant used the legal remedies available within the respondent state: the application must then be lodged within 6 months of the unsuccessful exhaustion of the domestic remedies. One should also know that the ECHR can only order the respondent state to pay monetary compensation to the applicant, it cannot overturn any decision of the authorities or courts in the respondent state. Proceedings before the ECHR typically last several years. In some cases the ECHR does not award any monetary satisfaction, it only establishes that a violation of fundamental rights did occur, which may, however entail some favourable legal consequences within the legal system of the respondent state, or may serve solely the purposes of moral satisfaction. 

The ECHR can only adjudicate violations of thos fundamental rights that are explicitly guaranteed by the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms ratified by the state parties. These may correspond to or differ from fundamental rights guaranteed by the laws of the various state parties. The United Kingdom, while no longer a member of the European Union, remains a party to the Convention.

While applications may be lodged without the assistance of a lawyer, legal representation and the use of the ECHR's official languages (English and French) is compulsory once the ECHR communicates the application to the respondent state, which must then also respond to the allegation of violation in English or in French. Any lawyer practicing in any one of the 47 signatory states of the Convention may act as legal representative, regardless of the citizenship of the applicant, and regardless of which state is the respondent state. Thus a Hungarian, Austrian, British or French lawyer may equally provide legal representation of, e.g., an Americal citizen ldging an application against any of the 47 signatory states of the Convention, but only against these states. The U.S.A. is not a signatory state, thus no application can be lodged against the U.S.A., but this does not limit the rights of American citizens to avail themselves of the protection of the Covention on the territory of any state that signed the Convention. If the lawyer representing the applicant does not have a practice territory of the respondent state, consultation with a lawyer that does have a practice there may be of advantage, but the ECHR's procedure allows joint representation by several lawyers as well.    

Constitutional complaint proceedings (before the Constitutional Court of Hungary)

In modern judicial systems, most court judgments may be appealed to a higher court. After all, judges are not infallible, so let another court re-consider the pros and cons. In some cases a judgment rendered by the appeal court might still be appealed to a higher level court: this may happen in Hungary in criminal cases when the trial court and the appeal court rule differently. But surely at some point there will be no more possibilty for re-consideration of the merits of the case (guilt or innocence of the accused, a contracting party's obligation to pay, ownership of an estate established, or a marriage being void, whatever the litigation may be about) simply for the purposes of taking another look at the matter. (Res judicata accipitur.) 

Still even a case closed by final judgment, no matter if it was reached after or without appeal, may have to be re-opened if a new fact becomes known or a new proof becomes available. Most importantly, even in the absence of novum, there are legal procedures available to annul even a final judgment that is illegal (the sentence was pronounced by a clerk replacing the judge, the crime confessed was no longer a crime at the time of sentencing, the debtor's neighbor was ordered by the court to pay the debt, ownership was established in respect of an object that cannot be owned, to name some possibilities - no new fact, no new proof, just legal mistakes). If the legal system of a country, like that of Hungary,  is governed by a written constitution, then of the many possible illegalities that might conveivably affect a final judgment, perhaps the gravest although least obvious illegality is non-conformity with the country's written constitution. As written constitutions are necessarily expressed in very general terms (or they are "concise and vague" according to one statesman's wisdom of some years ago), a special forum may be established for the annulment of any final court judgment contrary to the constitution, and in fact for the annulment of any anti-constitutional legislation on which the final judgment was otherwise legally based: these are the powers of the Constitutional Court in Hungary. This body is not part of the ordinary judicial system of Hungary, its members are directly appointed by the legislature.

A constitutional complaint, asking for the annulment of a final judgment by reason of non-conformity with the constitution (the Basic Law of Hungary), can be lodged with the Constitutional Court within 60 days of the delivery of the final judgment. Legal representation is not compulsory, but admissibility for examination of the merits of the case has onerous prerequisites that may require argumentation based on legal theory, as cause-effect relationship needs to established between non-conformity with the Basic Law, or a question of fundamental importance of constitutional law needs to be formulated (Act CLX. of 2011. on the Constitutional Court).

It should also be kept in mind, that when a final court judgment violates a fundamental right that is protected both by Hungary's Basic Law and by the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, then according to present practice of the ECHR in Strasbourg, constitutional complaint in Hungary must be availed of before before lodging of an application with the ECHR.    

European criminal law

 Criminal accusations and the sentencing of citizens accused of incriminated conduct are a monopoly of the modern state. First of all this means that no individual citizen has the right to punish another individual. Secondly, every state determines the extent of its own jurisdiction, and determines what acts the state considers criminal. When a given act is punishable in more than one national jurisdiction, the courts of different states could judge the same individual concurrently or consecutively. However, European Union law limits repeated punishment for the same act in different states, the "ne bis in idem" principle prohibits double jeopardy. If needed the Court of Justice of the European Union interprets the notion of "same act", and will do this if requested by a national court in the course of any criminal proceedings. Violation of the ne bis in idem principle also constitutes a cause for bringing a case to ECHR.

International private law

International private law deals with the first questions that arise when a legal dispute between civil law subjects (such as individuals or private companies) involves the legal systems of more than a single country. When the parties to a dispute are not nationals or residents of the same country, the courts of which country will judge the case? Does the claimant have a choice in which country to initiate a lawsuit? And what if the parties are from the same place, but the dispute is about property located abroad, injury caused in another land, or contracts signed and performed at various international locations? Indeed several of these difficulties may arise simultaneously, and be possibly complicated by the issue that national courts may be called upon to apply not only the laws of their own country, but some laws of another country as well. These complex questions are regulated by some international treaties, acts of the European Union, or acts of national legislatures. Taking international private law into account very early in a legal relationship involving international elements may well serve the interests of both parties.