Crossroads of Codification: A Comparative Dialogue
Welcome

Dear Colleagues, ladies and Gentlemen, Der Professor Vékás,

It is a distinct honour to welcome you at this conference celebrating the 85th anniversary of Professor Lajos Vékás. In the rich and eventful, more than 350 years history of ELTE Law School we have had a number of giants whose impact transcends the centuries. Professor Vékás is one of these exceptional figures. His extraordinary oeuvre covering various fields of civil law, his central role in creating the new Civil Code of, his leadership at our university and the broader academic community and his unique ability to draw admiration as a person makes him the leading lawyer of today’s Hungary. 

It is next to impossible even to summarise the achievements of Professor Vékás. His works explored a variety of areas of civil law, ranging from the evolution and system of contracts through property law, the law of inheritance and also the law of conflicts. And all these with a very thorough comparative approach: already his early works in the middle of the communist era relied on a state of the art analyses of the leading sources of German, English, US and French law. Just to give an example: the first footnotes of his monography published in 1977 do not refer to some soviet authors but Ernst Rabel,  Oliver Wendell Holmes and the classic introduction to comparative law by Konrad Zweigert and Hein Kötz. This thorough comparative works has remained one of his trademarks ever since.

Professor Vékás also played a central role in the codification of civil law in Hungary. Between 1999 and 2007 and from 2010 to 2013, he was chairman of the Codification Committee which elaborated the draft of the new Civil Code, only the second Civil Code in the History of Hungary and the first that was adopted under democratic conditions. Ordinary Hungarian citizens hardly realise that their everyday life and major life decisions – like concluding a marriage, buying a house or leave a legacy – are influenced by the works of Professor Vékás.

As formative academic leader, Lajos Vékás was head of the Department of Civil Law at ELTE from 1979 to 1999, he served two terms as Vice Rector and from 1990 as Rector of Eötvös Loránd University. In this latter capacity, he could shape our university in the first years of democracy after the fall of communism. In 1992, he became the founding rector of Collegium Budapest, where he directed the institution for five years. He was elected a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1990 and a full member in 1995. From 2014 to 2020, he was Vice President of the Academy of Sciences and helped to navigate the ship of the Academy under rather difficult conditions.

The number of recognitions and awards of Professor Vékás is also extraordinary. His scientific achievements have been recognized by the University of Hamburg, the University of Heidelberg, the University of Vienna, the Sapientia University of Transylvania and ELTE University with the title "doctor honoris causa". In addition to several prestigious state awards, his work has been honoured in Hungary with the Ferenc Deák Research Prize, the Albert Szent-Györgyi Prize and the Széchenyi Prize, just to mention a few.

But all these do not fully capture the significance of Professor Vékás for the community of all lawyers in Hungary. His incredible knowledge, his wit, his kindness, his genuine interest in and support for the younger generation continue to inspire us and make us grateful for his presence amongst us.

In this spirit I congratulate Professor Lajos Vékás and wish us all a wonderful conference.

I thank you for your attention.

Köszöntő gondolatok Vékás Lajos Professzor Úr tiszteletére rendezett ünneplő nemzetközi konferencián

Let me warmly welcome you on behalf of the Civil Law Department of ELTE Law School!

We have gathered here to get the opportunity to greet Professor Lajos Vékás earlier Head of the Department of Civil Law, Ordinary Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences solemnly on his birthday in the frames of an international civil law conference!

I respectfully welcome Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Vice President of the Academy, all Professors and Lecturers and our dear guests!

I would like especially to welcome our esteemed guests, iconic professors of Civil Law, Professor Müller-Graff from the Faculty of Law of Ruprecht Karls University, Heidelberg, Professor John Cartwright from the Faculty of Law of University of Oxford, Professor Ulrich Magnus from the University of Hamburg,Helmut Koziol from the European Centre of Tort and Insurance Law in Wien and Professor Christian vonBar from the European Legal Studies Institute in Osnabrück.

We have two catchphrases for today: the crossroads of codification and the birthday. In the remaining part of my short speech, I would like to connect these phrases another way.

Professor Vékás is the father of the new Hungarian Civil Code of 2013, as he accompanied the codification process from the beginning. As one result of this huge task, he was constantly occupied with the essence of codification, its possibility and tradition. He was continuously issuing publications and giving lectures on the topic. I would like to highlight a few thoughts from his writings, which he wrote in the volumes celebrating the birthdays of his colleagues, or in commemorative volumes over the past 20 years. In connection with the codification, he raised ideas that are still relevant today, since he challenged the nature and raison d'être of the codification on numerous occasions in connection with the codification of the domestic civil code. I’m sure that Professor Vékás would not mind if the names of his and our colleagues of the Department who were celebrated and honoured are also mentioned. That is the way I try to shortly connect fests, codification and science.

At the dawn of codification, in the period of Hungary's accession to the EU, he wrote a study in the commemoration book dedicated to professor Endre Lontai, dealing with the trends of scientific works aimed at the development of Central European private law, where can be this private law in the EU such as what challenges the Central European states – or, from a Western perspective, Central Eastern European states – face in this field. At the same time in another volume dedicated to Professor Attila Harmathy for his birthday, Professor Vékás discussed in detail what challenges the EU Member States face because of the development of European private law and what all this results in Hungary. A decade later, in a festive volume, dedicated to Tamás Lábady – who, although not a member of our department, was a well-respected fellow lecturer – he wrote on the social significance of national codes and their role in creating legal certainty. Professor Vékás stated that private law codifications can also play a role in the consolidation of states. These studies examined the issue of codification in different temporal and spatial dimensions, and this event today gives an opportunity to discuss the crossroads of codifications further.

I would like to add two closing remarks.

Many thanks to our kind and committed colleague, Péter Gárdos who raised the idea of organizing an international conference to celebrate Professor Vékás’s birthday, and after the whole Department supported this, he organized the event. I would like to thank to him and to all the colleagues, who made the invitation of our esteemed guests possible.

As a family lawyer let me close my greetings from a book from the year of 2003 edited by Professor Katharina Boele-Woelki. At that time – simultaneously with Professor Vékás’s words – Walter Pintens emphasized the magic character of the work ‘ius commune’ and Europeanisation, while others dealt with the possible misunderstandings around the words ius commune, unification, harmonisation and codification. In the same volume Professor Hondius reminded the reader that the private law and Europeanisation laid a heavy burden upon the shoulders of academics. This was true in 2003 and is true today as well.

I wish a happy birthday to Professor Vékás and a fruitful discussion for all of us!