On the 13th of February 2006 there took place in Cracow the ceremony of burying Professor Stanisław Płaza, an outstanding historian of Polish law, professor of the Jagiellonian University, responsible for educating many generations of lawyers. Professor Płaza was born on the 8th of November 1927 in the peasant family in Jarosławice, in the eastern marches. Upon the outbreak of World War II he and his family were deported to Siberia by the Soviet authorities. He returned to Poland in 1945 and in 1949 he passed his high school finals in the Jan Sobieski Memorial Secondary School in Cracow. In 1954 he graduated from the Law Faculty of the Jagiellonian University. Later, for some time he was employed in the State Archive, which was a significant  experience in his career. Since 1957 he was permanently bound with the University. Among his rich scholarly achievements there is detectable the research concerned with the peasant law. In this area he published valuable court record books. He laid a considerable emphasis on the research relating to the constitutional system of the 16th and 17th century Poland. He investigated inter alia the legal issues of interregna and nobiliary Seymiks. Since he was a determined advocate of comparative research he compiled a multivolumed synthesis of Polish legal history as set against the background of European developments. He was famous for his research of source-book and bibliography type. He did his teaching with enormous energy and sympathy. He supervised a considerable number of LLM and LLD alumni. He was professionally active until the end of his days. He will stay in our hearts as an individual distinguished by his enormous knowledge, great heart, kindness and sympathy.

The lex Aquilia de damno was undoubtedly one of the most important statutory enactments on private law in Roman Antiquity. Nevertheless, there is a lot of controversy connected with this lex, starting with the circumstances of its passing and its dating. Scholars in Roman law are quite sure that this law was undoubtedly subsequent to the lex duodecim tabularum, and it was passed by an assembly of the plebs after it had been proposed by tribune Aquilius [Ulp. D.9.2.1.pr.–1]. But the fragments of sources we possess, such as Gai 3.214, 3.218, 4.37; Ulp. D.9.2.27.22, Pomp. D.9.2.39; I.4.3.14–15, lead us inevitably into the field of speculation.

The aim of this study is to discuss and revise the propositions of dating the lex Aquilia which have appeared in the doctrine of Roman law since 19th century, such as the year 286 B.C., based mainly on a passage in Theophilus’ paraphrase of Justinian’s Institutiones [the Byzantine sources, Par.4.3.15’ also scholia anon. ad Bas. 60.3.1] and which is accepted by a fairly strong body of opinion. Also the propositions of dating made in accordance to the social, political and economic situation are critically considered; as well as some important findings which were made on the base of stylistic and linguistic arguments. The whole analysis made the author propose a dating of the second rather than the first half of the 3rd century B.C. as the most probable.

Protection to people who transported their goods by ships, stayed at inns or who left their horses in stables in case they suffered the damage of their things being robbed or damaged was served by the praetor in his edict (in factum adversus nautas caupones stabularios).

Shipowners (exercitores navis), innkeepers (caupones) and stable owners (stabularii) were also responsible for the things brought in with the guests by the right of the receptum nautarum cauponum stabulariorum on the basis of the in factum complaint (known also as the actio de recepto). The receptum became unnecessary in the course of time since taking responsibility by the aforementioned owners took place ipso iure at the moment of actual bringing in things by the guests and it was meant as a tacit consent. The boundary of this liability was very extensive (reaching even the vis maior). Eventually, since the time of Labeo the exceptio in favour of the exercitor navis was introduced in cases of damage caused by a shipwreck or a pirate’s raid, and later was extended to cases of fire, deluge, falling of a building and riots. This type of limited, objective liability was termed as the custodia. The actio de recepto considering its reipersecutorial character was included in the actiones perpetuae and vested also against the heirs of a person liable ex recepto.

This article is the general introduction into the aforementioned ex recepto liability and also into the circumstances which accompanied issuing the above praetors’ edict.

This paper presents the issue of the influence of the Roman Law on the English legal system through its historical development. One can find several fields where Roman Law, or ius commune was useful in England, like legal education, foreign serviced, the science of law and the practice of several courts administering equity, admiralty or ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

The Court of Chancery was a significant element of the English judicial system that operated outside the sphere of the common law. The equity law, intended to be a remedy for the strict rules of the common law, borrowed much from the Roman law. Many chancellors and masters in Chancery, having obtained a D.C.L or LL.D degree were open to adopt Roman law rules in the Court’s practice. In the common opinion, some of the equity institutions were borrowed from the Roman law, like trust (fideicomissum) or elements of mortgage (equity of redemption). Many “rules of equity” have also their origins in the Roman jurisprudence.

Many of Admiralty judges were doctors of civil law and members of the elitists organization Doctors’ Commons. Some of the court’s jurisdiction wad based on the Roman law, which was one of the reasons for professional envy and jealousy presented by common law judges headed by Sir Edward Coke. The Court of Admiralty was undoubtedly the most powerful English judicial institution using the rules of Roman law in its practice. One of the respodentia, based on the pecunia traiecticia and foenus nauticum.

Contemporary English barristers-to be are still required to get a pass in the Roman Law, in the United States the knowledge of the Roman Law is the mark of a very high professional status of the lawyer. Even American universities continue to offer summer courses in Roman Law and they still find applicants.

In the Middle Ages there functioned two models of organizing the University life. On one hand there was the corporate model which provided for the organization of the scholars according to the guild pattern: the scholars elected their Rector from among themselves and, on the basis of the agreed tuition fee, employed professors. In the collegial model, in its turn, these were the professors who made up their own community. Casimir the Great selected the first of the two aforementioned models while founding his University in which he planned to form three faculties: of law, medicine and liberal arts. He failed however to receive the acceptance of the Pope for creating the faculty of theology. Hence the founding document contains no mention of such faculty. The King conceived of law as the most significant line of studies. Casimir the Great thought it particularly necessary to entrust the judiciary with the qualified lawyers. In addition, he urgently needed the latter to develop diplomatic activities in the international scene. It was however due to unfavourable circumstances that during this monarch’s life only the faculty of liberal arts began to function. What facilitated its functioning was the fact that the faculty did not appear on intellectual desert. It could resort to the potential previously formed by the Cathedral School as well as school attached to the parish of Our Lady, the school being characterized by high educational level. The instruction that was given in the discussed faculty encompassed a traditional area of trivium, i.e. grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, as well as quadrivium including arithmetics, geometry, astronomy and music. Although upon the death of its founder the Cracow Academy suspended its activities, there were some scholars who managed to be awarded baccalaureati in the Academy’s artes. This testifies to the fact that Casimir the Great’s concept referring to the Academy’s profile of studies was, at least to some extent, materialized.

Polish-Lithuanian Seym of 1576 convened at Toruń was the first ordinary parliament under the reign of the second freely elected Polish king, Stephen Bathory (1576–1586). According to the opinion of legal historians this Seym was ineffective since no parliament-adopted statute (in the old-Polish terminology referred to as the constitution) was issued during its stormy debates. This was due to fact that at that time there appeared a serious divergence between what the monarch (who was preoccupied with the civil war between the Crown and the city of Gdańsk) expected from this Parliament and the Polish-Lithuanian gentry that tended toward fundamental constitutional reforms. In my opinion, this Parliament, functioning under the pressure of necessity, went as far as adopting two enactments of the end of November 1576, referred to as the ordinances. One of them dealt with the duty of the towns to accommodate the royal officers. The other one limited itself to appointing special deputies of both houses of the Seym, and equipping them with the task of collecting and administering a socalled defense tax. In the volumes of Metrica Regni Poloniae, numbered 113–115, there were also registered a plenty of privileges issued for towns and some social groups at that period. There were also contained in them some documents illustrative of parliamentary debates. The content of the discussed volumes sheds a new light on the efficiency of Conventus Generalis Torunensis A.D. 1576.

When viewed from the perspective of the hitherto made research, the royal legacja and royal proposal are regarded as the manifestation of the monarch’s right to introduce bill. If that opinion were true the subject of debate held in the General Seym of the Crown should be the preliminary bills as contained in these two undertakings: the one made in writing (legacja), the other articulated by the words of mouth (proposal). These preliminary bills should be also reflected in the content of statutory law as adopted on their basis. Yet when thoroughly read, the texts of preserved legacjas and proposals, dating back to the reign of Sigismund III, do not seem to support that opinion. In fact the legacjas and proposals contained no – even those preliminarily formulated – bills. The legacjas and proposals may only fall under the category of programs of sessions of the Seyms that were planned to be convened.

These were first of all the deputies who had the right to introduce bills. It was therefore in the lower house that, as a result of debates, the bills were formed. The concepts of such bills, when unanimously adopted by lower house deputies, were subsequently subjected to conclusive acceptance in the Senate, the acceptance being made in the presence of three debating estates

The present paper discusses the regulations (Ordynacja) issued on the 6th of June 1759 and governing the jurydyka Wygoda, the jurydyka being an enclave subjected to the authorities other than those of the city in which jurydyka  was located. The paper discusses the content of the regulations and the innovations that they introduced in the jurydyka’s organization.

The regulations governing the jurydykas, despite their resemblance to similar acts issued for villages, had their own specificacy. The latter referred to the problems that they regulated, modus procedendi applied for their adoption as well as the influence that the jurydyka’s community might have on the content of the regulations.

The analysed regulations are designed to introduce some order into the situation prevalent in the jurydyka. Therefore the regulations reactivate the office of the commune head and the benchers. They try to improve their functioning and restore the weakened prestige of the owners of jurydyka. They try to oppose the interference in the jurydyka’s affairs as made by the external authorities.

The author of the paper emphasizes the significance of those provisions of the regulations that provide for the principles along which the contracts referring to the jurydykas’ real estates should be formulated, there being formed a larger control over such transactions. The regulations tried to simplify and improve the organization and functioning of the commune head and the benchers. Likewise, they tried to prevent the abuse of law. The study of the regulations enlarges our knowledge about the functioning of the old-time jurydykas in Cracow. 

When ruled by Peter Leopold (1765–1790), the Grand Duchy of Tuscany was regarded as the “model state of enlightened absolutism”. Young ruler carried out numerous reforms in his state. They were of political, social and economic nature. The area in which there was an attempt made to introduce considerable changes were the relationships between State and Church. The first stage of reforms was concluded with the synod of Pistoia. On occasion of holding this synod, the reformers, headed by bishop Scipione de’Ricci, tried to introduce a series of changes into the relationships inside the Church. The changes varied from those of organizational type to those referring to theology and dogmas. The aforementioned synod ended with the victory of reformers, yet an attempt to transfer its achievements into the territory of other dioceses of Tuscany faced the resistance of conservative episcopate and caused a spectacular defeat of the reformatory camp (gathering of bishops in Florence). The conflicts between State and Church, observable in the international scene, usually ended with the victory of State authorities but the plans to drum up the support of multitude for the Church reforms produced a countereffect in the form of riots against the reform-oriented clergy. The crowd protests in Prato, Pistoia and Florence were designed to defend the traditional model of religiousness, cult of saints, relics and pictures as well as the Latin language as used in liturgy. These protests forced the millieu of bishop de’Ricci to resign from the remarkable part of planned reforms.

After the first partition of Poland, it was in the Austrian partition zone of Galicia that the Josephinistic legislation treated the priest as the civil servant. He was therefore charged with the duties to draw up and keep certificates typical of the civil registry office. In view of the previous absence of homogeneous practice in this area, the requirements laid down by the Austrian statutory law seemed to be advisable. The requirements referred in particular to baptism, marriage and death certificates. Those who were obligated to see to it that the entries be correctly made were the bishops on occasion of their inspection of parishes. Also the competitions for the Church posts, including those of the parish priest, were the manifestations of the control excercised by the administration over the priests, this being reminiscent of the medieval dispute referring to investiture. Also a series of detailed provisions referring to the Church area and concerned with the fire prevention, minerals obtained by mining or forest economy, were exponential of administrative dealings with clergy.

The Constitution of the Duchy of Warsaw may be regarded as the model implementation of the Napoleonic constitutional ideas. The Constitution contained the quintessence of Bonapartism: personal rule of the monarch based upon the professional centralized bureaucracy, accompanied by parliament whose role was more decorative than real. Although such system was alien to Polish parliamentary tradition the Poles surprisingly easily adapted themselves to it. Many factors were at work to reach that goal: longing for independent state, the desire to do away with the harsh Prussian regime and the hopes of full restoring of independence. What was of utmost significance was the fact that state apparatus became the fully national structure. The Duchy of Warsaw was acknowledged as the constitutional continuation of old-time Poland.

The Napoleonic civil law legislation, as introduced in the Duchy of Warsaw, was anti-feudal in its content. Hence, it sometimes did not fit the socio-economic circumstances prevalent on the Polish soil. Yet, despite the fact that the Code Civil had no stronger links with the Polish legal tradition and contained the provisions which were excessively revolutionary from the point of view of conservative attitudes of landed gentry, it soon ceased to give rise to negative emotions. This was so because its liberal and egalitarian assumptions in fact corresponded the freedom-promoting ethos of Polish nobility. The ardent supporters of the Code were not only detectable among the governing elites but, one might say, the entire society promptly adapted themselves to its provisions. However these norms of the Code Civil which dramatically departed from Polish mentality, like e.g. lay matrimonial law, remained a dead letter. The Napoleonic legislation did not, therefore, thoroughly transformed the social relationships on the Polish soil but it undoubtedly had an impact on the democratization of Polish society and modernization of state structures, particularly the administration and the judiciary.

It was the Preparatory Commission, referred to also as the Commission for Code Amendments, that in the Kingdom of Poland, in the years 1815–1817, was assigned the task of preparing the amendments to the Napoleonic Code. These were Jan Wincenty Bandtke, Antoni Wyczechowski and Prince Adam Czartoryski who demonstrated particular activity in to Commission since they had their own plans of forming national law. However the plans of codifying property law on the basis of old-Polish and Lithuanian patterns were sharply criticized in the Administrative Council (the debate of the 26 th of March 1817) ad in the Governmental Commission of Justice. Despite the fact that Tsar Alexander I and the political millieu in Petersburg suggested that the work over codification be postponed until non-specified date, the Lawmaking Commission, composed of 8 members, continued the fragmentary codifying efforts in 1817–1818. These efforts resulted in the amendments to the law of marriage, of mortgage, and the law on marking out borders as well as that referring to interest rates and moratory questions. The amendments were adopted by the Seym in 1818.

Free, independent and strictly neutral City of Cracow (so called Republic of Cracow) which appeared in 1815 and survived until 1846, made up a peculiar type of statehood. Despite being a subject of international law it was not considered to be a fully sovereign entity since, from the very beginning it was “in the care” of three protective Courts (of Russia, Austria and Prussia). The scope of this “care” determined the boundaries within which the Three Powers’ intervention in Free City’s internal affairs was admissible.

It is against this background that there may appear a question, often formulated in research on international law: what type of statehood did the Free City Cracow represent? Can one speak of the “state” in its case at all. There may be raised arguments that it was rather the territory that was subject to no one’ sovereignty but functioning under international protection. In other words, there may be formulated the question: is it possible to point to other entities that would resemble that of Free City Cracow.

It was in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy that, on the basis of the ordinance of 1888 those young individuals who completed their education at the high school or university levels with top distinction, could apply for the diploma sub auspiciis imperatoris.

The motion for such a diploma was drawn up by the Academic Senate while the decision was taken by the Ministerium für Cultur und Unterricht, the diploma being signed by the emperor himself. The laureate received therefore the diploma that was solemn in its form. Likewise, he received, from the emperor, the ring with the imperial coat of arms and monogram.

This distraction, stimulative of the ambitions of young people, was of considerable significance in the further career of the laureates. This distinction was introduced at the time when the old class structure of the Habsburg Monarchy was already being deprived of its legal foundation. As a result, the armorial signet rings in informative of the nobiliary affiliation could, in the course of time, be replaced by those obtained with one’s own knowledge and value. This, in its turn, would lead to the forming of the elite whose origin would not rely on birth but on merits.

The paper is based on the search query as made in the State Archives in Cracow, and specifically on the analysis of files of the Cracow Circuit Court covering the years 1918–1945. In both discussed trials whose objective was the separation of spouses these were the husbands who filed the application. They were Catholics with the University educational background and both were the sons of the professors of law the inter-war period. In the first case, supplied with the court reference no.: SOKC 4334 (Cg XI f 713/21) it took the trial almost three years and a half (from 31 May 1921 until 17 September 1924) to be ended, the case being examined in the three instances. The Cracow Circuit Court, after 6 hearing sessions, dismissed the application for the separation. The Appellate Court upheld this decision while the Supreme Court in which the motion for the revision was lodged unexpectedly found the decision justified and adjudicated on the separation of spouses on the basis of the fault that it attributed to both parties.

The files of the second trial were supplied with the reference no.: SOKC 797 (I C 1323/34). It took the trial 17 months (from 8 November 1934 until 21 April 1936) to end, after four hearing sessions. The decision amounted to the suspension of legal proceedings. For 3 years that followed the parties did not apply for the resuming of the proceedings. As a result the Cracow Circuit Court issued, on the 18th of March 1941, the “On Behalf of the Law” decision on the discontinuance of the suspended proceedings for the separation, thereby fulfilling the requirement of legalism. These proceedings could be classified among those that were most time consuming, the case being tried in one instance. In view of the fact that divorces were not admitted on the basis of the ABGB, the separation trials as instituted by Catholic spouses in Polonia Minora region were decidedly the most frequent method that was applied to deal with difficult matrimonial issues by married couples.

Legal historians hardly ever show interest in discussing the norms that regulate the executory process. It was for a dosen or so years that in the inter-war Poland there functioned three parallel but different systems of executive agencies. They were inherited from the partitioning powers. It was only on the 1st of January 1933 that some uniformity was introduced into the system by the putting into force of the provisions on executory process which supplemented the code of civil procedure. It was from that time on that the debt collectors became the nation-wide executive agents. The pattern that was exploited on occasion of the aforementioned unification was that borrowed from Prussia., other solutions, after modifying, being however also resorted to. The new provisions formed a fairly coherent system although not devoid of defects. The amendments to the discussed system were however prevented from being introduced due to the outbreak of World War II.

The present paper was written as early as 1992 on occasion of the first anniversary of adoption of the Statute on income tax which was designed to be collected from natural persons. It was on occasion of discussion referring to the principles of tax law that the present paper recalled the tax-related slogans at one time formulated by Adam Smith. These slogans make up the canon of fiscal theory accepted by the outstanding Polish experts on the problem, inter alia by Fryderyk Skarbek, Stanisław Głąbiński, Adam Krzyżanowski or Henryk Radziszewski. In the context of these slogans the solutions of the Statute of 1991 were subjected to criticism. The problem is that the creators of the Statute, in its detailed solutions, did not show full respect to the principles of justice ad equality that laid the foundations of social order. The analysis of the aforementioned detailed statutory solutions should help the legislator to arrive at the reflection that the fiscal difficulties experienced by the state cannot be mechanically regulated by burdening the poorest in the some way as the rich are burdened.