Code Napoleon
July 29th 2008 02:29
Code Napoléon, designation officially applied in 1807 to the code of French civil law originally enacted in March 1804 as the Code Civil des Français and still in force in France. Properly, the term applies to the entire body of French law, as contained in five codes dealing with civil, commercial, and criminal law, promulgated between 1804 and 1811. An initial draft completed in 1793, following the outbreak of the French Revolution, was a protest against the extreme diversity in the laws then in force in different parts of France. This draft was rejected by the National Convention, but finally the task of preparing another draft was entrusted in July 1800 to a commission consisting of the most eminent jurists of France. The new draft, with some conservative features, was completed in four months. It encountered considerable opposition before it was finally enacted. It was named in honor of Napoleon, emperor of France, who had participated in the formulation.
The Code Napoléon was a compromise between the customary law, basically Germanic, of the northern provinces of France, and the essentially Roman law of the southern and eastern regions of the country. In arrangement, the code corresponds to the Institutes, contributions made by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I to the Roman Corpus Juris Civilis, or body of Civil Law. Among the merits of the French code are its simplicity and clearness of statement. It has required many judicial interpretations, however, and has been frequently modified by legislative amendment. As a result of the Napoleonic conquests, the code was introduced into a number of European countries, notably Belgium, where it is still in force. It also became the model for the civil codes of Québec Province, Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, some Latin American republics, and the state of Louisiana.
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