A gyermek jogainak érvényesülése a magyar polgári eljárásban
Implementation of the Rights of the Child in Hungarian Civil Procedure

Summary/Abstract: The status of children, and their role have both undergone significant changes all over the world in the past half century. The rights and vulnerabilities of the child are now the subject of increased attention in all fields, including in the framework of the judicial process. Today, the notion of child-friendly justice is not unknown in Hungary although it is yet to be decided if the proper term is child-friendly or child-centred. The means of ensuring that the rights of the child are respected are common to all procedures; however, the traumas and adverse experiences they may have found themselves subjected to are widely diverse in civil cases (usually the establishment of parental supervision), criminal cases (usually crimes where the victim is a child), and in procedures specific to the tutelage authority; so, the question deserves examination in view of such specificities. The adoption of the New York Convention was a significant milestone in the domain of the rights of the child; however, laying down the theoretical foundations was only relatively slowly followed by a dynamic of development in practice, and that took place with a wide degree of variability in different fields. In Europe — as in Hungary —, the participation of the child during the procedure meant the same as a hearing when the child is addressed questions. Today we know that Laura Lundy was right when in several of her studies she drew attention to the fact that true participation is more than simply asking the child questions. In my research, I set myself the task to create a type of catalogue for the procedural rights of the child and to answer the question: what more can we do that has not yet been done in order to avoid transforming participation in a procedure into a burden, or even worse, a trauma for the child, but instead making it the reflection of a plenitude of rights, a defining but not uncomfortable experience?

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