Author: Péter Gárdos
European Review of Private Law, 5/2007. page 702-722
After introducing the process and some fundamental concerns of the codification, and the structure of the new Civil Code, the article presents in the followings some of the most debated issues of the drafting process. A thorough analysis would exceed the limits of this article, so what follows is a subjective selection.
The new Code intends to systematise and generalise the provisions applicable to legal entities, however, it will not contain provisions on company law. The Parliament promulgated the new Companies Act in January 2006. Although dogmatically company law could have been incorporated into the new Code (as it had been done in Switzerland and the Netherlands), the Ministry of Justice and Law Enforcement argued that company law included many elements of public law (especially the provisions on companies limited by shares). The Second Book, therefore, contains a Chapter on the common rules of legal persons irrespective of where they are regulated, which – contrary to the current six sections – consists of 75 sections. This could help to create a common background for all types of legal entities. These rules are partially based on directive 68/151/EEC of the Council. The Codification Committee concluded that these rules might be necessary for legal entities other than companies limited by share. The new rules intend to create a flexible regime; most of the rules apply only if the members of a given legal entity do not otherwise agree. These rules serve, therefore, as models, which create a fair and balanced regime. This regime applies unless other laws or the bylaws of the legal entities not provide otherwise.
The drafting of this part of the Code reflects the difficulties of codification in a continuously changing legal environment. It is worth noting that the Parliament also adopted a new act on Company Register and significantly amended insolvency law.28
Since the codification movement of the 19th century, one of the most controversial questions was whether it was necessary to have a General Part containing rules on juristic acts. The German BGB is a scholarly masterpiece in this respect, which created one single definition of Rechtsgeschäft and applies that (or at least tries to apply that) throughout the Code, i.e. for contractual and family law legal declarations alike. The counterpoint of the BGB in this respect is the Swiss Zivilgesetzbuch (ZGB). As Zweigert-Kötz claims: ‘all the good practical sense of the Swiss led them to realise that these general rules are applied principally in the law of obligations and that it is essentially doctrinaire to insist that rules for the whole Code be contained in a separate General Part’. Art. 7 of the ZGB states that the general provisions of the law of obligations regarding the creation, performance and termination of contracts (...) are applicable to other relationships of private law. Both codes, therefore, reflect a clear decision of the drafters: dogmatic clarity or pragmatism.
The Hungarian Civil Code of 1959 also reflected a clear choice. The drafters discussed whether the juristic act or the contract should be the basic category, and the drafters chose the latter. ‘Some of the traditional elements of the general part functions merely as an ‘empty’ logical abstraction, as they are torn apart from the rules with which they are in reality in closest relationship. ( . . . ) The notion of juridical act, its types, creation, amendment, fulfilment and termination is in the closest relationship with the rules of contract; the juridical act as such is nothing else than a common denominator of artificially abstracted elements of contract and the exceptional cases of unilateral declarations’. Section 199 states, therefore, that the rules applicable to contracts shall also be applied to unilateral declarations unless otherwise provided by law.
Honlapunk sütiket használ annak érdekében, hogy személyre szabott módon tudjuk megjeleníteni Önnek a tartalmakat. Kérjük, olvassa el Süti Kezelési Tájékoztatónkat, amelyben további információkat olvashat a sütikről és azok kezeléséről. Beállításait módosíthatja ezen a linken vagy saját böngészőjének beállításaiban.
Ezek a sütik szükségesek a weboldal futtatásához, és nem kapcsolhatók ki. Az ilyen sütik csak olyan műveletekre vonatkoznak, mint például a nyelv, az adatvédelmi preferenciák. Beállíthatja a böngészőjét, hogy blokkolja ezeket a sütiket, de webhelyünk esetleg nem megfelelően fog működik.
A Süti Adatkezelési Tájékoztatót megismertem és hozzájárulok ahhoz, hogy a Gárdos Mosonyi Tomori Ügyvédi Iroda, mint adatkezelő a Google Analytics sütikkel kapcsolatban az IP címemet statisztikai célból kezelje. Tudomásul veszem, hogy a hozzájárulásomat bármikor visszavonhatom.
