Badó Attila - Feleky Gábor - Lőrinczy János - Ülnök a bíróságon - Jogszociológiai vizsgálat

In 2016, the Ministry of Justice proposed a reform of the Hungarian lay court system as part of the criminal procedure reform. The intention, which from 2018 significantly reduced the role of lay people without a legal education in the administration of justice, was part of the process that has characterized the former socialist countries since the 1990s. The sitting courts modeled on the Soviet model did not strengthen the belief in lawyers that popular participation would serve any meaningful purpose.

Even before the intention of the reform was known, the authors decided to conduct a comprehensive empirical research exploring the opinions of sitting judges and professional judges. With their study, they wanted to get an idea of ​​the sitting system, after such research had not been carried out in Hungary for more than fifty years. The last similar survey was conducted by Kálmán Kulcsár, and it took place in the past, in the 1960s, within the framework of a party state. The researcher's hypothesis for this volume was that due to significant social changes, only a small fraction of the knowledge acquired at that time may be valid today.

The authors wanted to make the empirical research more thorough and more enjoyable for the readers with a wide-ranging comparative analysis showing different models of lay judging.