Between the Cross and the Circle. Illiterates in the Records of the Conciliation Department and the Simple Police of the Peace Court in Zgierz and Łódź 1844–1876

The law in the Kingdom of Poland regulated the use of alternative forms of signature. The files of the courts of peace in Zgierz and Łódźabound in examples of their use. In guardianship documents, we most often find three crosses in lieu of a signature (in applications) or a mention of the illiteracy of the participants in the proceedings (minutes of meetings and resolutions). In the simple police department’s cases, Christians signed with crosses, while Jews drew three circles or signed in Hebrew. In each case, the official (a person witnessing the ‘signature’) attested that the signs were made by a specific person.

The regulations of the economic competition agreement were introduced by the 20th Act of 1931 after the economic crisis attention to the cartel regulations in Europe in the interwar period. We can realize that the regulation of the unfair business completion has a long codification history which started in the period of the Dualism. Before the end of dualism the Hungary regulated some question related to the cartels special attention to the circulation of commodities. In my presentation, I aim to describe the Hungarian and European codification antecedents and steps (for example: the regulation of industry) of the first Hungarian Cartel Act. This codification process was very important in Hungarian economy and social life because the economic changes started processes in both the field of legal life and legal sciences, and as a result of this, a demand arose to legally codify any rules in connection to cartels. The foundations of these were found in private law, especially in the regulations of the commercial law, which could be further elaborated upon and lead to a development of the regulations on the annulment of contracts in connection to dishonourable business competition.

 * Supported by János Bolyai Research Scholarship (BO/00198/18/9). Almási, A háborúhatása, 8.

The Penal Provisions of the Polish Copyright Law of 1926 in Legislative Works and Judicial Practice: Overprint – Plagiarism – the Subjective Side – Penal Sanctions

This paper is the result of the continuation of ongoing studies on the penal provisions of the Polish Copyright Law of 1926. Some of the research results were presented in the article titled The Penal Provisions of the Polish Copyright Law of 1926. The History of Its Creation –Its General Characteristics –Art. 61 and Its Significance for Further Regulations, which was published in “Cracow Studies of Constitutional and Legal History”(2018, issue 4). This text is a presentation of the analysis of special provisions regulating penal liability for the offences of overprint and plagiarism. Further in the article, the notion of the subjective side is discussed in relation to the offences defined in the Polish Copyright Law of 1926 and also the penal sanctions provided for these offences. In the analysis of the specific problems, emphasis is placed on the course of works on the regulations conducted by the Codification Commission and by the Parliament as well as on the issues related to their application. This approach makes it possible to reconstruct the fundamental legal problems faced by the codifiers and subsequently by the system of justice applying the relevant regulations. The studies concerning the application of copyright law were mainly focused on the judicial practice of the District Court in Kraków. They were based on the court registers and records from the interwar period stored in the National Archives in Kraków. The archival research discovered that the cases concerning the infringement of copyright constituted barely 0.09% of all criminal cases lodged with the District Court in Kraków in the 1930s. In that period, only five persons were definitely sentenced in this respect. Even though there were few criminal cases concerning copyright infringement in the times of the Second Polish Republic, the rulings issued, especially those issued by the Supreme Court, undoubtedly influenced the formation of jurisprudence regarding the interpretation of copyright, and they continue to be cited in pertinent literature up to this day.

The German occupiers abolished the Supreme Court in the General Government. In the Polish (non-German) judiciary sector, there was no court of the highest instance to ensure the unification of jurisprudence. The competence to ensure the uniformity of jurisprudence and resolve existing doubts and legal issues was transferred to the courts of appeal. The objective of the present article was to demonstrate the procedure and practice of issuing legal theses by the Court of Appeal in Kraków. The article also presents changes in the composition of the judges and the territorial jurisdiction of the Kraków Court of Appeal. Archival sources constitute the source basis of the work. We also resorted to the latest subject literature. The work is based mainly on the analysis of archival sources and legal acts, so the scientific methods typical of the history of law were applied.

*The present publication was elaborated as part of the research project entitled “Charakter prawny i rola tez prawnych uchwalanych przez polskie (nieniemieckie) sądy apelacyjne w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie w okresie II wojny światowej” financed by the National Science Center, Poland –under contract No. UMO-2017/27/N/HS5/00812.

A Project of Changes to Civil Procedure in the Works of the Civil Reform Committee (1814–1815). A Source Edition – Part 1 (Trial)

The present source publication is the fifth in a series encompassing the most important documents related to preparations for the replacement of French codes with national codification written by the Civil Reform Committee which worked between 1814 and 1815. Herein are contained the minutes of the sessions held by the Committee which concern a key debate among its members who argued as to whether to derogate the French Code of Civil Procedure in its entirety or only in fragments which were considered to be the most burdensome in Polish realities. Moreover, the publication also includes the first part of “The project of the civil judicial procedure in first instance”(primary procedure) presented by Franciszek Grabowski, a preeminent traditionalist in the Committee, along with fragments of the minutes reporting the course of the discussion concerning the project. Together with the second part of the proposition submitted by Grabowski encompassing enforcement proceedings, a counterproject of the code of civil procedure by progressive judge Antoni Bieńkowski, as well as a debate over these two proposals, which are to be published in the next issues of “Krakowskie Studia z Historii Państwa i Prawa”, the materials presented below portray the crux of the debate held over the Code de procedure civile of 1806, which aroused much controversy, and which was in fact the most criticized part of the French legislation in force in Polish territories.

* Niniejsza publikacja została przygotowana w ramach projektu „Kodyfikacja narodowa – fantazmat czy realna alternatywa? W kręgu debat nad rodzimym systemem prawa sądowego w konstytucyjnym Królestwie Polskim” finansowanego ze środków Narodowego Centrum Nauki na podstawie umowy nr UMO-2015/18/E/HS5/00762.

Orsolya Falus. Hospital Orders of Knights in the Times of the Arpads in Hungary. Zabrze–Tarnowskie Góry: Inforteditions, 2019, “On the Trail of the Crusades”, vol. XI, 226 Pages

The new book by Prof. Orsolya Falus concerns hospitalier orders of knights in Hungary during the reign of the Arpad dynasty. The topic undertaken by the author is largely unknown in Poland, and therefore worth presenting. The author, a graduate of the University of Pécs, dealt with six orders that were active during the reign of the Arpads and had hospitalier profiles in their activities.

The Oldest Accounting Notes of Przemyśl (1472–1510). Eds Anna Łosowska and Michał Schmidt. The Przemyśl: State Archive in Przemyśl, 2019, 252 Pages + Appendix

The book presented is a critical source edition of the three oldest accounts of the city of Przemyśl (manuscripts of the State Archives in Przemyśl, Shelfmarks 297, 298, and 299). The short description of the edition focuses on the use of these types of sources in research in the field of legal history, and emphasizes the richness of the critical apparatus developed by publishers.

Jewish Territorial Self-Government in the Crown in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Introduction and edition Adam Kaźmierczyk, Przemysław Zarubin. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2019, 679 Pages

The note presents the structure of the volume, including the method of summarizing documents in the form of a short abstract and a more extensive register –in English and Polish. Attention was also paid to the research value of sources concerning the Jewish self-government in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The volume provides valuable material for research in the field of the history of law, for example the legal grounds for judgments.

Łukasz Jan Korporowicz. Roman Law in Eighteenth-Century England. Teaching, Studying, Scholarship. Łódź: Lodz University Press, 2019, 237 Pages

This review presents a book recently authored by Łukasz Jan Korporowicz on the presence of Roman law in eighteenth century England. The book is divided into five chapters that deal with following issues: 1) teaching of ius civile in Oxbridge, 2) teaching of ius civile outside the universities, 3) the study of Roman law and obtaining formal degrees, 4) the impact of civil lawyers on the socio-political environment of England, and finally, 5) literature on Roman law.