TDK results
On 12 May 2025, the Faculty held its institutional round of the Scientific Student Conference (TDK), during which a total of 19 papers were presented across 3 sections.
Although there was no separate Civil Law section on this occasion, the department was successfully represented in the Constitutional and International Law Section, where Bálint Kulacs was awarded 1st place for his paper titled "The Constitutionalisation of Personality Rights." His supervisor was Dr Barna Arnold Keserű.
The research focuses on the impact of the genuine constitutional complaint, introduced in 2012, on the judicial case law concerning personality rights.
The paper begins from the observation that the traditionally private law-based protection of personality rights has undergone a significant transformation since the introduction of this complaint mechanism, increasingly acquiring a fundamental rights dimension. Using historical and comparative legal methods, the author analyses the evolution of personality rights, explores the relationship between European human rights instruments and the fundamental rights provisions of the Hungarian Fundamental Law, and examines how the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the Constitutional Court of Hungary influences the decisions of Hungarian courts.
The empirical section of the paper focuses on the period between 2013 and 2023, applying both statistical and qualitative methods to assess the proportion and effectiveness of personality rights cases adjudicated through the constitutional complaint procedure. According to the author’s conclusions, the new complaint mechanism contributes to a more effective protection of personality rights. At the same time, it also gives rise to interpretative uncertainties and challenges in judicial practice that call for further scholarly reflection.