Budapesti Népbíróság iratai. Büntetőperes iratok

People's court (népbíróság) is a term referring to special criminal courts established by the decree of the Interim National Government of Hungary on January 25, 1945. The primary function of people’s courts was to initiate criminal proceedings against the perpetrators of war crimes and the so-called crimes against the people. Their sphere of jurisdiction extended to Hungarian citizens, including the members of the army and law enforcement agencies as well as to foreign citizens captured in or extradited to Hungary. People’s Court of Budapest (Budapesti Néptörvényszék, later Budapesti Népbíróság) began to operate in February 28, 1945. Its sphere of competence was Budapest and its vicinity (the territory of the Budapest Criminal Court and the Pest and Vicinity Court (Budapesti Büntetőtörvényszék and Pestvidéki Törvényszék). The supreme appellate court of the people’s courts was the Budapest-based National Council of People’s Courts (Népbíróságok Országos Tanácsa).

From 1947 onwards several provincial people’s courts were disbanded and their files were handed over to the People’s Court of Budapest. In 1949, all the people’s courts were disbanded and the records of open criminal proceedings were allocated to the Budapest Criminal Court (Budapesti Büntetőtörvényszék). In the 1950s, the bulk of the trial materials were taken into the custody of state security organizations, which often re-organized the files. The material was taken to the archives in several phases int he 1970s-1990s. However, some of the trial documents were kept by the Ministry of the Interior, therefore an important part of these files, primarily the investigative documents are still in the custody of the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security (Állambiztonsági Szolgálatok Történeti Levéltára).