Objectives and crises of codification of private law in France

Cerqueira, Gustavo (2024) Objectives and crises of codification of private law in France. In: Codification of Civil Law: Assessment, Reforms, Options. Legal Heritage . Central European Academic Publishing, Miskolc–Budapest, pp. 139-179. ISBN 978-615-6474-72-8 ISBN (epub) 978-615-6474-73-5 ISBN (pdf) 978-615-6474-74-2

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Abstract

Modern French codification of private law is, above all, the written expression of a doctrinal work, a sort of official legal science petrified in state law. As an approach to the creation of legal rules, this codification stands out for its aim to create a well-ordered legal framework, composed of logically consistent and accessible rules. Its guiding principles were and remain constituted by the dual objectives of creating a political nation under unified rules and maintaining this legal system as an attractive option for legal transplants and model rules worldwide as a method of integrating it into the international legal order. This chapter presents the methods by which the political project of codification was achieved, the theoretical foundations of the norms considered during the initial phase of the 19th-century codification, as well as the effects of this codification, which manifested in a veritable model-code of the following two centuries, internationally. Next, the shortcomings of the current status of the code are examined, such as the process of ‘decodification’, by which significant rules are recast as special norms (e.g., regulating economic life) outside the body of the code and the associated trend of recodification whereby various segments in the body of the code are constantly modified. Finally, experimental legislation is mentioned as a risk to the stability of codified rules of statutory law.

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