The Legal Genealogy of Whistleblowing in Hungarian and Anglo-Saxon Traditions

Makkos, Nándor (2026) The Legal Genealogy of Whistleblowing in Hungarian and Anglo-Saxon Traditions. BELÜGYI SZEMLE, 74 (7). pp. 2031-2042. ISSN 2062-9494 (nyomtatott); 2677-1632 (online)

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Abstract

Aim: Whistleblowing – the disclosure of wrongdoing in the public interest – has evolved from a moral duty into a formalized element of compliance and integrity management. This study offers a legal genealogical contribution to contemporary compliance theory by demonstrating that whistleblowing is not a twentieth-century regulatory innovation but a persistent moral-legal structure embedded in European governance traditions. By integrating medieval legal history, comparative public law, and modern compliance governance the paper advances a diachronic model of integrity in which disclosure functions as a trans-epochal normative constant rather than a purely managerial instrument.Methodology: The study applies a genealogical approach grounded in legal-historical and moral-philosophical analysis. It reconstructs three parallel trajectories: (1) the Anglo-Saxon lineage from King Wihtred’s Leges Wihtredi (695 AD) through the Misprision of Felony doctrine to the False Claims Act (1863), the Whistleblower Protection Act (1989), and the Dodd–Frank Act (2010); (2) the Hungarian lineage from Saint Stephen’s Decreta I–II (1000–1038) through Werbőczy’s Tripartitum (1514) and the Csemegi Criminal Code (1878 Act V) to the socialist-era Act I of 1977 and finally Act XXV of 2023; and (3) a comparative synthesis identifying shared ethical constants and implications for contemporary compliance theory. Consistent with the perspective of Pokol (2020), legal norms are interpreted not merely as positive rules but as expressions of moral order within social structures.Findings: The research reveals that the duty of disclosure constitutes an enduring moral-legal archetype of governance. Both Anglo-Saxon and Hungarian traditions converge on the principle that truth is a civic obligation and the foundation of legitimate authority. While the Anglo-Saxon tradition evolved from moral theology to individual rights, the Hungarian path developed from hierarchical legitimacy to civic responsibility. Across thirteen centuries, Hungarian law maintained the triad of truth, justice, and community – from divine command to administrative integrity – demonstrating that whistleblowing is an ethical constant predating modern compliance frameworks.Value: The study contributes to compliance scholarship by linking moral anthropology to administrative ethics. It reframes whistleblowing as a civilizational mechanism of moral maintenance rather than a managerial innovation, showing that protecting truth-tellers revives a thousand-year-old principle of Hungarian and European legal consciousness. In doing so, it bridges ethical genealogy and modern governance, highlighting that integrity systems are not imported constructs but continuations of deeply rooted moral traditions.

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