Carrying out of the Official Licensing and the Defence of Civil Law Liability – With an Outlook on Judicial Practice

Abstract

In general, the key condition is the official licensing for the lawfulness of carrying out a highly dangerous activity, even if the facts of the official license (being done or missing), of the appropriate carrying out and the operation, and of the observance of rules and regulations, remain irrelevant issues in the viewpoint of the civil law liability for damages. Our opinion is that the typical public law provisions (i.e. official licenses, official controlling) prescribing precautions, preventive measures against the source of high danger have retroactive effect – though an indirect one – upon the civil law assessment of the dangerousness of a given activity or thing, and they also have effect upon the establishing of the civil law liability for damages, which tendency is enhanced by the compulsory liability insurance as it is gaining ground. The following essay intends to deal with these issues with the help of the Hungarian judicial practice, the international legal literature, especially the theories of the mixed nature of public and civil law in the scope of liability for highly dangerous activities and the works in the field of Law and Economics