DEVELOPMENT OF PRIVATE (CIVIL) LAW IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE AFTER WORLD WAR II

The article analyses peculiarities of civil law in socialist countries. The author also considers problems of adaptation of Central and Eastern European law systems in the conditions of modern market economic reality after socialism upset. The author believes that a Roman-law tradition in the mentioned countries used to be and still is presented at both legislative and theoretical level. Romanist (Pandectist) influence can be observed in civil codes of all socialistic states. There were three different types of civil law codification in those countries. The first of them (USSR, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary) is characterised by adoption of socialist civil codes. The second type (Bulgaria and Albania) is characterised by adoption of several laws relating to the law of property, law of obligations, law of succession, etc. The third type (e.g. Romania) is characterised by conserving its former “bourgeois” Civil Code. Nowadays a major contribution to the development of private/civil law is the ongoing process of European harmonisation of law in those countries of Central and Eastern Europe which became member states of the European Union. Private Lаw of the Community is increasingly coming to the fore. Today the most “Europeanized” area of private law is a corporate law. But a significant modern trend in the mentioned countries is also so-called re-implementation of the pre-socialistic legislation. In the author’s opinion, the main reason for this phenomenon is the intention to maintain a relative autonomy.

• Hamza

• Социальные (общественные) науки