Ceterum censeo, let’s not talk about law enforcement yet

Aim: One of the aims of the study is to generate a debate that seeks to synthesise. The nascent field of law enforcement has developed a lot over the last 30 years or so, thanks to the constructive ideas of many eminent law enforcement researchers, but it is not yet a discipline in its own right. In order to become a genuine discipline, it is essential, among other things, to engage in open and debatable polemics on the basic problems of the subject, and in doing so to establish a consensus on the basic scientific concepts. To become a science, it is essential to critically examine the legislation relating to policing, and thus to analyse it in relation to the Fundamental Law and to itself, with particular attention to conceptual confusion and subjectively interpretable terms. In addition to outlining certain problems of scientific theory, the present study also aims to explore the contradictions between the definition of police tasks and other legal provisions in the Fundamental Law and the Police Act, and to justify the redefinition of the legal provisions. To put forward ideas for consideration which may help codifiers in the next amendment of the Fundamental Law and, in the long term, in the regulation of the general content of the Police Act. Methodology: From a methodological point of view, the interpretation of the individual conceptual elements was based on the Fundamental Law, the analysis of the Police Act, the literature and the relevant research results. On the other hand, a non-representative survey was carried out among Traffic Police of two police stations full-time and master students of the Faculty of Law Enforcement of the Ludovika University of Public Service, in order to collect a set of data from which conclusions could be drawn. Findings: Debates are necessary. In the process, consensus must be reached on the most fundamental dogmatic issues necessary for the development of the nascent science of policing, including a critical revision of many of the Law enforcement lexicon’s entries. To equate police and policing, to regard the two categories as synonymous, is a serious mistake. The legal object of the police and the police function, which is based on law, is approximately the same. The police law is the primary law of law enforcement. The definition of its public task (the legal subject matter), including the relevant article of the Fundamental Law, urgently needs to be reconsidered, as it gives rise to differing, even arbitrary, legal interpretations in practice. On the other hand, it fundamentally undermines the prospects of the nascent science of law and order. Value: The study critically points out the diagnosis of the nascent police science, at the same time it wants to give a partial prognosis on the collisions of the legal regulation of law enforcement and police, and the need for codification perspectives.