President of Hungary Tamás Sulyok at the 150th anniversary celebration of the Pécs Bar Association

The bar associations established 150 years ago have consolidated the prestige of the legal profession and put its independence on a strong foundation, said Tamás Sulyok, President of Hungary, in Pécs.

At the ceremony held in honour of the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Pécs Bar Association, the Head of State stressed that the establishment of the bar associations put in place the framework through which the lawyers’ trade acquired a position of full independence, and the mandatory entry into the Bar Association was a "truly epoch-changing step in the history of communication between lawyers and the development of a unified professional order".

The President of Hungary stressed that the acquisition of sovereignty was necessary to finally establish the rule of law in Hungary after the regime change, the "main guardians of which are the lawyers themselves".

According to the Head of State, the legal profession shows that "disputes can be settled with reason, with facts, according to the law, rather than with aggressiveness, raw impulses and barbaric vigilantism".

According to Dr. Tamás Sulyok, lawyers have a turn for practical application. Realising that they need to "remain faithful not only to the letter of the law, but also to its human spirit", lawyers apply abstract legal principles and concrete legislation, and pursue adherence to the law as a personal cause.

The President of Hungary called the 150-year-old Pécs Bar Association a special asset in the Hungarian legal system. He said that its members were indispensable and valuable resources of the legal profession in Hungary, emphasizing that Pécs gave lawyers like László Sólyom, Ferenc Mádl, Géza Herczegh, Oszkár Abay Nemes, Ernő Flachbart, Tamás Lábady and Péter Darák to the country, i.e. nothing less than two heads of state, a former president of the Constitutional Court, a former judge of the Hague Tribunal, internationally renowned legal scholars, a former president of a Court of Appeal and of the Curia.