Judge royal

Judge Royal of the Kingdom of Hungary
Appointer	King of Hungary Diet of Hungary
Precursor	Some functions of Palatine
Formation	c. 1127
First holder	George
Final holder	Aurél Dessewffy
Abolished	1918 (1884)
Succession	President of the Curia Regia

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Great Officers of State in the Kingdom of Hungary
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Kingdom of Hungary
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The judge royal,^[1][2] also justiciar,^[3] chief justice^[4] or Lord Chief Justice^[5] (German: Oberster Landesrichter,^[6] Hungarian: országbíró,^[6][7] Slovak: krajinský sudca or dvorský sudca, Latin: curialis comes or iudex curiae regiae),^[6][7] was the second-highest judge, preceded only by the palatine, in the Kingdom of Hungary between around 1127 and 1884. After 1884, the judge royal was only a symbolic function, but it was only in 1918 — with the end of Habsburgs in the Kingdom of Hungary (the kingdom continued formally until 1946) — that the function ceased officially.

There remain significant problems in the translation of the title of this officer. In Latin, the title translates as 'Judge of the Royal Court', which lacks specificity. In Hungarian, he is 'Judge of the Country', with 'country' in this sense meaning 'political community', being thus broadly analogous to the German 'Land'. English has no obvious translation for Landesrichter, which is the direct German translation of országbíró.