Formation c. 1127 Final holder Aurél Dessewffy | First holder George Abolished 1918 (1884) | |
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Appointer King of Hungary
Diet of Hungary Precursor Some functions of Palatine | ||
The judge royal, also justiciar, chief justice or Lord Chief Justice (German: Oberster Landesrichter, Hungarian: országbíró, Latin: curialis comes or iudex curiae regiae), was the second-highest judge, preceded only by the palatine, in the Kingdom of Hungary between around 1127 and 1884. After 1884, the judge royal was only a symbolic function, but it was only in 1918 — with the end of Habsburgs in the Kingdom of Hungary (the kingdom continued formally until 1946) — that the function ceased officially.
There remain significant problems in the translation of the title of this officer. In Latin, the title translates as 'Judge of the Royal Court', which lacks specificity. In Hungarian, he is 'Judge of the Country', with 'country' in this sense meaning 'political community', being thus broadly analogous to the German 'Land'. English has no obvious translation for Landesrichter, which is the direct German translation of országbíró.