The Polish Code of Liabilities of 1933 - Its Establishment, Source and Importance for the European Obligatory Law

Abstract

The Polish Codification Commission was established in 1919 and one of its fruits was the code of liabilities of 1933. This codification, whose main founder was the prominent civil law specialist Roman Longchamps de Berier, was internationally acclaimed. The code also played an important role in the formation of Polish legal culture in the post-war period. Owing to its substantive merits, the code had been the foundation upon which Book Three of the 1964 civil code was worked out. Therefore we are justified to claim that the code is “directly” binding now, when we have returned to the principles of market economy that were in use in the Second Polish Republic.

The study has been divided into five parts. Apart from introductory remarks (I), a general characterization of the proceedings of the Codification Commission on the obligatory law (II) has been given. The European codification has been presented here as well, the codification which is a model for particular projects of the obligatory law and was the foundation on which the Codification Commission (III) worked. An attempt has been made to show the influence of the obligatory laws of the European countries on the Polish code of liabilities (IV). The study is closed with a summary of conclusions (V).