Károly Csemegi
Hungarian opinion journalist, jurist, judge and politician (1826–1899)

Károly Csemegi (1826–1899) was a Hungarian judge who was instrumental in the creation of the first criminal code of Hungary.
Though born Jewish, he later converted to Christianity.
After serving as a major and commanding troops in the unsuccessful Hungarian Revolution of 1848, he worked as an advocate in the countryside. Following the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, Csemegi became a high official in the new Hungarian Ministry of Justice, in which capacity he drafted the 1878 Criminal Code as well as the Code of Criminal Procedure. Soon after, he was appointed to the post of Presiding Judge of the Hungarian Supreme Court. Csemegi was also the founder and first president of the Hungarian Jurists' Association.
References
Gönczi, Katalin (2001). "Csemegi, Károly". In Michael Stolleis (ed.). Juristen: ein biographisches Lexikon; von der Antike bis zum 20.
“Károly Csemegi” enters the record as hungarian opinion journalist, jurist, judge and politician (1826–1899). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Károly, Csemegi and Hungarian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q871454. VIAF identifies the subject as 28231958. The Library of Congress control number is no2007110715. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1826, 1899, 1848 and 1867.
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This entry incorporates text from “Károly Csemegi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.