LA REFONTE DU CODE CIVIL ROUMAIN ET LE CODE CIVIL DU QUEBEC

Abstract

No other Eastern European country preserved its modern civil code during the socialist era; Romania is the one exception. Greatly inspired by the Napoleonic Code, Romania’s civil code came into force on December 1, 1865. The only major changes it underwent between 1945 and 1989 concerned individuals and extinctive prescription. Its first book (“Of Persons”) was repealed in 1954 and replaced with a Family Code, receded by a special statute dedicated to physical persons and legal entities (Decrees Nos. 31 and 32 of 1954). Then in 1958, a new, modern regime of extinctive prescription was promulgated (Decree No. 167). Attempts at reform, like those of 1939 and 1971, were successively abandoned. After the 1989 revolutionary movement, the revision of civil legislation was considered one of the most important economic and social reforms. The revision of the existing civil code or the drafting of a new code was envisaged as the central problem of such a reform. This analysis illustrates the background against which the new Romanian civil code was drafted: the methodological debates, the practical organization of the work and the political problems, in an attempt to draw some general conclusions as to the final result.