Iusta causa usucapionis According to Trebatius and the Vatican Fragments

The author of the paper discusses the construct of usucaption as approached by Trebatius and Fragmentum Vaticanum 1 in the context of just cause of usucaption (iusta causa usucapionis). In the sources analyzed in the text, one may find the oldest preserved mentions concerning the prerequisite for usucapio, which, according to the author, is an important element of that legal construct. The article presents the following fragments: D. 41,4,2,7; D. 41,6,4, D. 41,10,4 pr. and Fragmentum Vaticanum 1, giving much thought to the latter – particularly focusing on Labeo’s notion incorporated in the source. His standpoint, included in Fragmentum Vaticanum 1, was presented together with the opinions of earlier (veteres) and later (Sabinus, Cassius, Proculus, Celsus, Julian, and Paul) jurists. The texts indicate that at the turn of the republic and the Principate, usucaption was a well-formed institution, for which the reasonable cause of usucaption was an important premise. The lawyers of those times focused on the analyses of cases which today we would think of as the most difficult ones.

Selected Projects for a Common Peace in Europe from the 15^th to the 17^th Centuries as a Remedy for the Problem of Wars of Religion

The article is devoted to three projects focused on establishing international organizations whose aim was to bring about a common peace in Europe. The first of them was worked out at the court of the King of Bohemia, George of Podiebrad, most probably in 1462; the second is mentioned in the treatise authored by French monk Émeric Crucé, andedited in 1623, under the telling title Le Nouveau Cynée; the third, on the other hand, is Grand Dessein,described in the Memoiresof Duke of Sully Maximilien de Béthune, a minister of Henry IV, the first two volumes of which appeared in 1638. The authors of the present study propose to take a new look at the projects under analysis, perceiving in them an attempt to find a remedy for the problem of wars of religion. Hence, the first of them is shown in the context of the Hussite Wars in Bohemia, whereas the other two are shown in that of the Huguenot Wars in France. The thesis is accepted in the article that George of Podiebrad’s project was primarily meant to be an answer to the current political problems of the day which the “Hussite King” was confronted with. The legal solutions included in the project could – as it seems – offer the Bohemian monarch a handy tool facilitating prevention of both a possible mutiny raised by the internal Catholic opposition, and an attack from outside, which, as a result of Pius II’s repealing of the Compactataand George’s refusal to accept the conditions of agreement proposed by the Holy See, could not be excluded. The acceptance of the thesis of political motives behind the propositions offered by the “Hussite King” does not belittle the value of the very project itself, which, in the history of European political and legal thought, was undoubtedly of paramount importance. Of the three peace plans presented here it is only the project put forward by George of Podiebrad that was invested with legal norms, constituting a ready project of an international contract. It distinguished itself against the other projects with its detailed elaboration and the complexity of the proposed solutions. Moreover, as the only one that was well-known at European courts, it became the subject of diplomatic negotiations which raised considerable interest also among its opponents. The latter were led by the papacy, fighting it, as it eventually turned out, with success. Both George of Podiebrad’s project and the Count of Sully’s proposal took into account the establishment of international organisations of regional character which would associate exclusively Christian states, regarding the fight against the Ottoman Empire as one of the more significant goals of their existence. Only the project by Crucé, which – contrary to the other two was written not by a politician, but by a thinker – assumed bringing peace in a universal dimension, including all the sovereign states of the world. The innovatory approach of Crucé’s proposition consisted in acknowledging as the fundamental one the idea of expected binding the members of the projected organisation by freedom of trade exchange which would be guaranteed in the global dimension”. For the authors of all the aforementioned peace plans the institutional factors uniting the states associated in the organizations to be established were to be commonwealth organs, among which a particular place was to be assigned to organs capable of settling conflicts between states. They can be considered to be a prototype of a contemporary international judiciary. The projects in question were founded on the principle of formal equality of sovereign states, which was accepted as the basis of international relations in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Furthermore, they introduced the principles of renouncing war and accepting the peaceful settlement of conflicts in mutual relations, and of striving for the creation of a system of collective safety. In this way they evidently went beyond the canons of the epochs in which they were created, and some of the ideas lying at their foundations did not materialize until the 20^th century.

“This General Diet Has Begun Without a Beginning and Has Ended without an end”. So-called ‘Pacification’ General Diet in 1698 and its Meaning in the Context of liberum veto Evolution

The article presented is devoted to an interesting episode from the legal and political history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the end of the seventeenth century – the “breaking up” of the General Diet in 1698 by liberum veto. This particular session of the General Diet was summoned by the newly-elected king – August II, for the ‘pacification’ of the nation and the legitimization of his reign against the opposition that had gathered around the archbishop of Gniezno – Cardinal Michał Radziejowski in Łowicz. The Diet failed to satisfy the king’s expectations. Poor attendance by envoys and senators, as well as the negative attitude of the Lithuanian delegation, caused a brief ‘breaking up’ of the Diet.

The author of the paper tries to show this episode, not as a political, but as a legal phenomenon, and also as an underestimated precedent in the history of old-Polish ‘deliberative’ democracy. He points out the insufficiency of previously known procedures of negotiation with envoys announcing their vetoes. He also emphasizes that the contradiction of the Lithuanian envoys was completely irrational, and that the acceptance shown for their demands was commonly considered to be obviously illegal. Besides this, the envoys were strictly obliged to ‘break up’ the Diet, which was clearly against the essence of the parliamentary mandate. However, this was not enough to reject contradiction. From this very moment any attempt to limit or restrain liberum veto was not possible.

The Institution of Transfereral of Criminals in the Term of the Polish Penal Procedure Code of 1928

The institution of transferring of criminals, which was regulated in articles 642-650 of the Polish Penal Procedure Code of 1928, was an element of the development of the Polish penal procedure in the interwar period. The Code’s regulation consisted of three elements: regulation on transferring criminals to Poland, transferring of criminals by Poland and transport of prisoners. The regulation contained in the Code were supplementary to regulations of international law and constitutional regulations. In the following paper the roots of the regulation were presented as well as it’s characteristics and the changes of the regulation which occurred during the communist period. 

Criminal Case of SS-Oberscharführer Franz Langner, a Member of the KL Auschwitz Garrison, before the Court of Appeal in Cracow (1949–1952)

The aim of the dissertation is to present the course of court proceedings in the criminal case against Franz (Franciszek) Langner, born in 1891, a Polish volksdeutsch, and member of the SS KL Auschwitz crew, who was tried in Poland from 1949 to 1952. During the Second World War Langner renounced his Polish nationality and joined the SS. He was sent to KL Auschwitz, where he served from April 8, 1942 to January 20, 1945. He performed various functions among the watch-keeping troops, achieving the rank of SS-Oberscharführer. After the war, Langner was arrested and criminal proceedings were instituted against him. Initially, this was related to his declaration of belonging to the German nationality, and then - when his service in the SS came to light - to the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The crimes that Langner was accused of changed several times. The trial was held at the Court of Appeal in Cracow. By virtue of a judgment of 5 April 1950, Langner was sentenced to death. After Langner filed an appeal, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Poland partly annulled, in the verdict of November 13, 1950, the verdict of the Court of Appeal in Cracow, and remanded the case for reconsideration. On April 13, 1951, the Provincial Court in Cracow (established in place of the Court of Appeal) sentenced Langner to a joint penalty of 10 years imprisonment. The Supreme Court upheld this judgment in a judgment of January 29, 1952. Langner ultimately died in prison on February 2, 1952. Due to the prisoner’s death, the criminal proceedings were discontinued.

Works of the Civil Reform Committee on the Civil Law and Civil Procedure Codification on the Eve of the the Establishement of Kingdom of Poland (1814–1815) – Historical Source Edition. Part I

The present paper is an introduction to the source edition of 13 documents concerning the organization of the Civil Reform Committee and the Committee’s work on changes in civil law and civil procedure. The Civil Reform Committee was appointed by Tsar Alexander I on 19 May 1814 in connection with the plan to transform the Duchy of Warsaw into the Kingdom of Poland, a Russian client state. Participants of the Committee’s works were Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, Mikołaj Nowosilcow, Tomasz Ostrowski, Stanisław Zamoyski, Tadeusz Matuszewicz, Aleksander Linowski, Józef Kalasanty Szaniawski, Tomasz Wawrzecki, Franciszek Grabowski, Antoni Bieńkowski, Józef Koźmian, and Andrzej Horodyski.The Committee’s goal was to prepare a reform of the administration, the treasury, and the codes of civil and penal law. The Tsar’s guidelines urged the Committee to sever all ties with the French models and to draw from native traditions. As regards civil law and civil procedure, the works reached a moderate degree of advancement. Only outlines of the future codes and fragmentary legislative drafts were prepared. Even though these works may be deemed to have been a beginning of Polish codification of law within the modern meaning of the word, the documents used in this process have been heretofore used sparsely by historians, including historians of law. Thus the need for their publication. At the same time we are publishing fundamental documents concerning the organization of the Committee itself.
 

A review of Piotr Z. Pomianowski’s book, entitled “Divorce in the Central Polish Lands in the 19th Century. The Napoleonic Code in the Practice of Polish Courts (1808–1852)”, The Campidoglio Publishing House, Warsaw 2018, 449 p.

Piotr Pomianowski’s book is the first monograph in Polish historical-legal literature, which verifies the previous views on the number of adjudicated divorces in the territory of Poland between 1808 and 1852. It results from the analysis of the court records that show that a little over two thousand divorces were adjudicated in the area of the Duchy of Warsaw and Congress Poland, as well as in the Republic of Cracow pursuant to the Napoleonic Code. Up till now the literature had included erroneous information that there were only several or a few dozens of such divorces adjudicated.

The facts established by the book’s author show that in the first half of the 19^th century divorce proceedings were more frequently initiated by women than by men (70% to 30% in Kalisz and Kielce, as well as 59% to 41% in Warsaw). The average divorcéwas 38.7 years old and the divorcée was 30.8; in about 80% of the cases the husband was older than the wife, and in 20% it was vice versa; however, the average age difference between divorcees was 10 years. The average marital period of divorcees in Warsaw communes was 8.5 years, and 12 years for those in Płock. The representatives of the following professions dominated among divorcees: factory owners, craftsmen, and those earning a living in industry (23.6%), next came government officials, teachers, and representatives of liberal professions (22.5%), and then heirs of landed estates and tenants (10%). Servants, journeymen, and peasants made up about 13.6% of the defendants.

Pomianowski’s book merits a very positive assessment. The analysis of the institution and the phenomenon of divorce, as well as the description of the research results are on a high level. The elaboration should interest not only historians of law but also scientists of other specializations, for instance researchers of the history of demography and population statistics, social culture and morals, population migrations, women’s rights, etc.