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IZOLDA TAKÁCS: THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
the primary focus of remedies, Monori writes, is that no civil law claim (home¬
ownership, etc.) should override women’s human rights, the rights to life, and
to physical and mental health.“
In all fairness, criminal law has coercive measures that may assist in the
initiation of criminal proceedings. Ihe judge may decide to keep the defendant
away from certain persons, to leave the condominium and to keep their distance
from the victim’s workplace. In case of any violation, they may be placed in
pre-trial detention, as there is no other way to prevent repeat offences (cf. Law
LXXII of 2009 on Domestic Violence Offenses, which, in addition to address¬
ing the concept of domestic violence, details preventive distance as well).
However, it is a question of how and in what ways these can be applied in
court practice, whether they assess the relationship between the victim and
the abuser, the mental state of the offender and the victim, and whether the
actual and/or special situation of women is taken into account (if she is/can be
threatened in the case of forgiveness, for example).
In addition to this, it should be noted that, as a result of legal developments,
an independent criminal law situation has emerged: “relationship violence”,
which came into force with the new Criminal Code in 2013 and has already
had visible results. “As of 2018, 205 convictions have been issued for violence
against women. This does not mean that more violence has taken place since
then [since 2013], but that those are being abused have greater courage to deal
with such situations, so independent statutory has helped.”** However, latency
remains high and, in many cases, real data regarding violent acts in relation¬
ships is only revealed through obituaries.
Public (structural) causes also play a role when, for example, domestic vi¬
olence occurs to a man. At the same time, violence against men occurs to a
significantly smaller degree, such cases are rarely detected and their outcome
is not as serious as the opposite.
Another example comes from criminal law as well, and concerns self-defence
against an attacker as an extenuation. In legal terms, defences against provo¬
cation and self-defence are exempt from the charge of murder. However, the
legal defence of legitimate protection is not exhausted by an act where the
woman does not react spontaneously to her husband/partner’s abuse for years,
but much later, or well before the next expected attack." Physical differences
do not allow for immediate protection for women in most cases, and it thus
happens rarely. Since "a legitimate defence situation and action on such can
be invoked as a matter of principle if there is an attack, or at least can be
63 Monori: Esélyegyenlőség, 54.
64 Cf. Jogászvilág, 2019, https://jogaszvilag.hu/napi/a-torveny-a-bantalmazott-mellett-all/ (ac¬
cessed: 11 November 2019); cf. 2012. évi C. törvény a Büntető Törvénykönyvről, https://net.
jogtar.hu/jogszabaly?docid-A1200100.TV (accessed 23 May 2021).
65 Monori: Esélyegyenlőség, 260—268.
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