Release date is 2025-05-28

Albert László from page images generously made available by the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

"... és a felelősségtől való rettegés" : "A kontárság kultuszának" folytatása by Émile Faguet is a political and legal essay written in the early 20th century. It argues that a cultural fear of responsibility has shaped French institutions since the Revolution, encouraging mechanical legality, bureaucratic dependence, and moral evasion. Building on his earlier critique of incompetence, Faguet probes how legal doctrines and administrative structures foster unaccountable judges and a subservient judiciary. The opening of the work stakes a bold thesis: modern France strives to make decision-makers irresponsible, especially in law. Faguet contrasts judges who rigidly apply statutes (thereby avoiding moral judgment) with the older, precedent-shaping English judges and the Roman praetors who accepted real responsibility. He revisits Montesquieu versus Voltaire on the venality of offices, arguing that hereditary or purchased judicial posts once secured independence from the executive, whereas the Revolution tethered courts to the government, producing a double irresponsibility (strict textualism plus political dependence). To illustrate, he dissects a case against Cardinal Luçon about mixed public schools, accusing the court of trusting ministerial assurances, neglecting factual inquiry, and even twisting a legal opinion. He then analyzes the Dreyfus affair’s cassation ruling, claiming the court subtly inverted a procedural article to avoid remand, thereby serving state convenience while leaving the affair morally unresolved. The section closes by hinting at ministerial influence behind such outcomes, underscoring the book’s core theme: institutions engineered to evade accountability. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Budapest: Franklin-Társulat, 1922