25 April 2025
To commemorate the anniversary year of the establishment of the regional lawyers’ associations, the Magyar Nemzeti Bank is issuing a silver collector coin with a face value of 20,000 forints and its non-ferrous metal version with a face value of 3,000 forints. The jubilee collector coins present the legal profession’s symbols, creed and territorial organisation (which includes 20 associations), highlighting the largest public body of lawyers of the Hungarian legal profession, the Budapest Lawyers’ Association.
The lawyers’ associations and the legal profession play a crucial role in developing of Hungary’s legal system and in supporting its constitutional institutions. On 4 December 1874, Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, ratified Article XXXIV, which established the legal background for the organisational framework of the Hungarian legal profession. One of the most important innovations of the legislation was that it established the regional lawyers’ associations, ensuring the independence and territorial organisation of the profession, and that it made membership in the Register of Attorneys mandatory for legal professionals. Starting from January 1875, lawyers’ associations were founded one after the other in Historical Hungary, and for the past 150 years, they have served legal professionals and seekers of legal advice as professional and advocacy bodies following the principle of self-government. There are currently 20 lawyers’ associations operating in Hungary at county level and in Budapest.
To commemorate the anniversary year, the Bank is issuing a silver collector coin with a face value of 20,000 forints and a non-ferrous metal version with a face value of 3,000 forints named ‘150 éve alakultak meg a területi ügyvédi kamarák’ (‘150th Anniversary of the Regional Lawyers Associations’). The primary role of collector coins is to offer education and to raise awareness; therefore, they are not to be used in everyday payments. Their face value serves to preserve the value the coins represent to collectors.
The obverse and reverse, respectively, of the coins were designed by applied artists Balázs Bitó and Andrea Horváth. In addition to the motifs on the reverse and obverse of the coins, the number of reeds on their edges reinforce the reference to the anniversary year.
For more information about the coins, please consult the attached documents.