Enikő Kovács-Szépvölgyi

57751137200

Publications - 7

Juvenile court – the Conqueror of Legal History

Enikő Kovács-Szépvölgyi

Publication Name: Journal on European History of Law

Publication Date: 2022-01-01

Volume: 13

Issue: 1

Page Range: 156-160

Description:

The idea of the title that the juvenile court is the greatest conqueror of legal history comes from a work by renowned criminal lawyer Ferenc Finkey, who quoted Hastings H. Hart’s thoughts about the juvenile court. The Juvenile Court first appeared in Illinois, USA, in 1899, followed by most federal states and several countries on the old continent. The state-and legal life of Hungary, in the broader context of the Central and Eastern European states, is usually interpreted in the framework of the centre-periphery model. Without going into the issue of regulatory delay, it is worth noting that Hungarian legislation caught up with pioneering states with special criminal law regulations introduced in the early 20th century to establish the foundations for other treatment of juvenile offenders. The different treatment in this context refers to different rules from those for adult offenders. The law regulating the juvenile court as a special court entered into force in 1914, supplementing the substantive criminal law provisions with procedural rules.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: DOI not available

From Voice to Action: Upholding Children’s Right to Participation in Shaping Policies and Laws for Digital Safety and Well-Being

Enikő Kovács-Szépvölgyi Roland Kelemen Dorina Anna Tóth

Publication Name: Societies

Publication Date: 2025-09-01

Volume: 15

Issue: 9

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

While the digital environment offers new opportunities to realise children’s rights, their right to participation remains insufficiently reflected in digital policy frameworks. This study analyses the right of the child to be heard in the academic literature and in the existing international legal and EU regulatory frameworks. It explores how children’s participation right is incorporated into EU and national digital policies and examines how genuine engagement can strengthen children’s digital resilience and support their well-being. By applying the 7C model of coping skills and analysing its interaction with the right to participation, the study highlights how these elements mutually reinforce the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through a qualitative analysis of key strategic documents and the relevant policy literature, the research identifies the tension between the formal acknowledgment of children’s right to participate and its practical implementation at law- and policy-making levels within the digital context. Although the European Union’s examined strategies emphasise children’s participation, their practical implementation often remains abstract and fragmented at the state level. While the new BIK+ strategy shows a stronger formal emphasis on child participation, this positive development in policy language has not yet translated into a substantive change in children’s influence at the state level. This nuance highlights that despite a positive trend in policy rhetoric, the essential dimension of genuine influence remains underdeveloped.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3390/soc15090243

Mind the Net: Parental Awareness and State Responsibilities in the Age of Grooming

Enikő Kovács-Szépvölgyi Zsófia Cs. Kiss

Publication Name: Social Sciences

Publication Date: 2025-09-01

Volume: 14

Issue: 9

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

In the digital environment, grooming—classified as a communication-based risk—has shown a steadily increasing frequency in recent years. In Hungary, increasing attention has been directed to the protection of children’s rights in the digital space in alignment with ensuring their online safety, with both parents and the state playing crucial roles in ensuring a safe digital presence. Within this context, the state bears a particular responsibility to educate not only children but also parents. This study explores how public policies and institutional programs in Hungary address the prevention of grooming and the reactive management of this harm through parental awareness. It examines existing measures aimed at expanding knowledge related to prevention and response, based on a qualitative analysis of the normative foundations of the state’s educational obligations and the relevant academic literature. The study relies on questionnaire data collected from parents of children aged 7 to 18 to examine the effectiveness of state measures and parents’ perceptions of them. The findings of the empirical research may support the development of state-led parental education programs and identify current gaps. As such, it can play a guiding role in shaping the direction of a future, large-scale investigation.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3390/socsci14090506

Dilemmas of Child Protection in Hungary During the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy: Addressing the Issue of Morally Abandoned Children

Enikő Kovács-Szépvölgyi

Publication Name: Journal on European History of Law

Publication Date: 2025-01-01

Volume: 16

Issue: 2

Page Range: 94-100

Description:

Following the Austro-Hungarian Compromise (1867), Hungary underwent significant legal modernization, which extended to the regulation of endangered children. Within the evolving framework of state-led child protection, administrative and judicial branches constituted the core mechanismsaimed at safeguarding vulnerable minors. In the case of morally abandoned, delinquent, or at-risk children – those operating on the fringes of petty criminality – the state sought appropriate interventions, alternating between administrative and judicial approaches. The placement of materially abandoned children in state-run children’s shelters became possible under Decree No. 60.000 issued by the Ministry of the Interior in1907, which, according to archival sources, was implemented in practice. The Juvenile Court Act (Act VII of 1913) allowed for the temporaryor permanent removal of children from their original environments through specific measures: temporary decisions for non-punishable children and definitive rulings for juveniles. As a result, morally neglected children came to occupy the intersection of administrative and judicial state-led child protection systems.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: DOI not available

Ctrl + Alt + Remedy? Child Rights, Access to Justice and Preventive Responses to Cyberbullying in the European Union

Enikő Kovács-Szépvölgyi Bernadett Szakács Brigitta Molnár

Publication Name: Societies

Publication Date: 2026-04-01

Volume: 16

Issue: 4

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

This study examines how European Union Member States address cyberbullying affecting children through legal and policy frameworks, paying particular attention to children’s rights. It employs a qualitative, document-based comparative methodology, applying a harmonized codebook to analyze definitional, legal, preventive, and reactive responses across all 27 EU Member States. The analytical framework is grounded in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child, the Better Internet for Kids (BIK+) initiative, and the Digital Services Act, which serve as normative benchmarks. Coding draws on EU-level harmonized sources, including Joint Research Centre outputs and the 2025 BIK policy reports, and aggregates the findings into a composite structural indicator capturing the formal regulatory and policy coverage of cyberbullying from a child rights perspective. The results indicate a high level of formal regulatory attention in most Member States, particularly regarding criminal law protection, educational prevention, and institutional reporting mechanisms. However, child-specific and child-friendly elements—such as explicit cyberbullying definitions, adapted reporting procedures, and tailored civil law remedies—remain uneven and limited. The study concludes that, despite comprehensive formal regulation, significant gaps persist in the integration of child-centered and access-to-justice-oriented mechanisms, underscoring the need for strengthened child rights approaches and further research on implementation and children’s lived experiences.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3390/soc16040116

Restricting Digital Device Use in Schools: Comparative EU Policy Perspectives and a Hungarian Case Study

Enikő Kovács-Szépvölgyi Roland Kelemen Polett Koncsekné Reményi

Publication Name: Social Sciences

Publication Date: 2026-05-01

Volume: 15

Issue: 5

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

In recent years, several states have introduced restrictive measures regarding children’s use of digital devices in schools, shifting policy focus from digital literacy development towards prohibition and regulation. This study employs a comparative policy analysis to examine the regulation of ICT device use across EU member states, followed by a Hungarian case study focusing on a ministerial decree that restricted students’ access to digital devices. The social and educational implications are explored through an empirical survey-based study conducted among parents of children aged 6–18. The findings indicate that the regulation’s legitimacy is based on a general normative conviction rather than direct experience. The study reveals that a top-down policy, lacking broad social consensus and student participation, tends to function as a lex imperfecta (imperfect law) in practice, which in turn fosters a “hidden curriculum” of rule circumvention among students. We argue that such policies, by undermining the perceived legitimacy of rules, may unintentionally damage students’ long-term legal socialization and respect for norms. This suggests that effective regulation requires participatory approaches to build legitimacy, rather than relying solely on prohibition.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3390/socsci15050307

The Child Protection Paradox in the Criminal Laws of EU Member States: Self-Generated Sexual Images and the Limits of Criminalisation

Enikő Kovács-Szépvölgyi Kata Franciska Vági

Publication Name: Laws

Publication Date: 2026-06-01

Volume: 15

Issue: 3

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

The criminal law assessment of consensual sexting between minors requires interpretation within a child-rights framework that accounts for children’s evolving capacities and the ultima ratio principle of criminal law. Although child self-generated sexual images and videos (CSGIV) may, in many jurisdictions, conceptually fall within the scope of offences relating to child pornography or child sexual abuse material (CSAM), consensual peer-to-peer sharing typically lacks the classical elements of sexual exploitation. This article provides a structured comparative overview of how the criminal law systems of the twenty-seven European Union (EU) Member States regulate consensual minor-to-minor sexting, identifying three regulatory models and assessing their compatibility with child-rights standards. The research is based on a structured comparative legal analysis drawing on the report and country reports of the second monitoring round of the Lanzarote Committee, complemented by a primary analysis of the relevant criminal law provisions of the Member States. The analytical framework relies on a coding manual developed by the authors along thematic dimensions. The findings identify three regulatory models: systems that provide explicit differentiation and safeguards; systems that formally criminalise the conduct but operate with implicit mitigation; and systems that entail a broad risk of criminalisation. The analysis reveals considerable normative fragmentation and demonstrates that the absence of explicit differentiation may expose forms of adolescent self-expression to criminal liability. The article concludes that, to comply with child-rights standards, explicit normative safeguards and a consistent application of the exceptional character of criminal law are required.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3390/laws15030047