Mayoral Jurisdiction Based on Act XLII of 1870

Abstract

The rights and obligations of a mayor, the scope of duties of the primary office-holder of municipal towns were determined by Act XLII of 1870. The duties and proceedings of the mayor were regulated in detail by the towns, and by this method, they made clear that the mayor is the primary office-bearer of the municipality, and thus, bore an extremely significant set of political and administrative legal powers. This study is going to provide a description of the scope of duties of a mayor, especially the rights of this office in connection to the office-holders of towns, its fulfilled role within the committee of the municipality and the fulfilment of administrative tasks. In the everyday life of a town, the role of mayor did not only play a significant political role, and not only did he supervise the actual administrative proceedings, but also safeguarded their effectiveness. Among the office-bearers, it was the duty of a mayor to assure the protection of a city’s interest against government objectives, the fulfilment of which was tasked to the comes (főispán). Therefore, the election and the actions of a mayor affected the administration of municipal towns immeasurably, to which archival examples will be provided within the framework of this essay.