The Commencement and Historical Development of the Right to Property in Hungary

The paper introduces the emergence and the historical development of the right to property in Europe and in Hungary, and gives a historical overview to this right in the 19-20th century. During the historical development of property rights it became clear that property of individuals should be protected not only against other individuals, but against the arbitrary interference by the State as well. Consequently, the requirements formulated as principles of constitutionality by modern societies sprang up on the basis of an established bourgeois society founded on the freedom to own and deal with various categories of property. In the modern sense of ownership in the traditional Hungarian private law there was no “property”, the 1848 revolution established free private ownership of land in Hungary. The right to property was introduced in the Hungarian Constitution during the comprehensive revision performed simultaneously with the transformation of the political system of the years 1989/90 after centuries of property law development preceding it. The Hungarian constitutional regulation was determined as a result of almost 40 years of influence by Stalin’s Constitution of the year 1936. The destruction of the enormous predominance of former State property concepts and the formation of the new social order based on private property rights of individuals were the first serious task of the Hungarian Constitutional Court following the transformation of the political system.