Preliminary communication
General Civil Code in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Codification as a Means of Transformation of Legal System
Fikret Karčić
; Faculty of Law, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegovina
Abstract
Between 1839 and 1918 Bosnia and Herzegovina has gone through two modernization projects – Ottoman Tanzimat reforms and Austro-Hungarian modernization of the Central European type. In both cases, the modernization relied on a particular codification for the transformation of the legal system: the Ottoman Civil Code (Mecelle) and the Austrian General Civil Code.
Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1878) marked its transition from the state of Islamic legal culture to the state of European legal culture. One of the used means was the Austrian General Civil Code. In Bosnia and Herzegovina this codification was used as a subsidiary source of civil law. Its application has been modified in certain legal fields where specific norms of the domestic (Ottoman) law existed. This was the way of the factual reception of Austrian General Civil Code.
In 1911, the Provincial Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina instructed the courts not to use the Ottoman Civil Code (as domestic law) if it was found to be contrary to the modern legal views. Since then the systematic reception of the Austrian General Civil Code began. This situation remained unchanged during the monarchist Yugoslavia with a tendency to abolish the remaining Ottoman institutions. These institutions were finally abolished with the beginning of socialist era in post WWII Yugoslavia, since the whole private law was abrogated. However, some rules, i.e. the General Civil Code rules, stayed in force in Bosnia and Herzegovina if there were no new rules that should have replaced them and if the old rules were not in conflict with the principles of the new social order.
Keywords
General Civil Code; Bosnia and Herzegovina; reception; transformation of legal system
Hrčak ID:
116254
URI
Publication date:
30.12.2013.
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