The chief justice[1][2][3] (Hungarian: királyi személynök,[4] Latin: personalis praesentiae regiae in judiciis locumtenens,[5] German: Königliche Personalis)[1] was the personal legal representative of the king of Hungary, who issued decrees of judicial character on behalf of the monarch authenticated with the royal seal, performed national notarial activities and played an important role in the organisation of lawyers training.

[6] The first known chief justice was Janus Pannonius, a Croato-Hungarian humanist poet who returned to Hungary after finishing studies at the University of Padua in 1458, the coronation year of Matthias Corvinus.

The tribunal chaired by the chief justice functioned as appellate court for the "towns of treasurer" (Hungarian: tárnoki város) too.

According to the Tripartitum (1514) five settlements were towns of chief justice: Székesfehérvár, Esztergom, Lőcse (Levoča), Kisszeben (Sabinov) and Szakolca (Skalica).

That finally occurred at the beginning of the 16th century when the Act IV of 1507 decreed that the office must be occupied by a secular person with legal practice.

As a result, the other elected king, John Zápolya also appointed a chief justice for his own royal court in the person of Benedek Bekényi.

During the Habsburg-dominated kingdom a customary law emerged whereby jurists to the office of chief justice were chosen from the lesser nobility, however later sometimes aristocrats were also appointed to that position.

After the defeat of the War of Independence Francis Joseph I applied neo-absolutist governance ("Bach system") and integrated the Kingdom of Hungary to the Habsburg Empire.

According to the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 the judicial system had been converted and modernized; the chief justice lost all of its features and the position was officially discontinued.