Bács-Kiskun megye múltjából 20. (Kecskemét, 2005)

ÖSSZEFOGLALÓK

Pest-Solt county was established this time and Kecskemét became the centre of that. It became a jurisdictional centre as well, where independent district-court was established at first, then county court of law from 1854. Public prosecutor's office was also functioning in the new organization. The new authorities of justice were working on the basis of codified law materials and in accordance with the earlier unknown official order and discipline. The Hungarian public life rejected the conflict of modernization and illegitimacy: in 1861, as the political situation changed the jurisdictional organization was wound up indeed, as a consequence of this conflict. Few years later, after the Compromise of 1867, it was refounded in a constitutional situation. ÁGOTA TÁNCZOS-SZABÓ THE FUNCTIONING OF PEOPLE'S COURT ON THE TERRITORY OF BACS-KISKUN COUNTY BETWEEN 1945 AND 1948 People's courts that carried out the impeachings after the War were wound up throughout the country between 1948-50. The liquidating of organs of Baja and Kalocsa is connected to the order of Ministry of Justice on January 12, 1948. The documents and unfinished cases of liquidated people's courts were taken over by functioning ones, and from January 1, 1951, the county courts of competent jurisdiction were judging in cases of war crimes and crimes against the people. The people's court of Kecskemét heard a case last on October 12, 1948. The contemporaries' view about the functioning of people's courts in Hungary was not positive and uniform. Though their establishment, the legalized retaliation, was considered as a historical necessity, their activity was criticized frequently. Mostly the Smallholder Party criticized them, they said that the courts, influenced by the Hungarian Communist Party, had rather undermined than established democracy. The recent bibliographies emphasize also the fact that the institution of people's court had served as a device for the Communist Party to gain power and remove opponents, and it was the first step toward the forming of socialist courts. By the end of 1946 the impeachments of people's courts were over and the time of constructed suits started. The communist party's intention to gain influence, the prevailing of daily political considerations in decision-making (acquitting of the Arrow Cross' smaller members, taking part in the collective punishment of a national minority) and certain phenomena in jurisdiction, waking memories of the era of Rákosi (punishing of anticommunist manifestations, slandering of church personalities), are observable from the outset. The pure aims of jurisdiction got lost and stained in political battles of the period. Malicious accusations, private vengeances, arbitrariness of the political police and infringement of rights started by the impeaching process. It let countless guilties run, while demanded a lot of innocent victims.