Blitzkrieg codification : the 2020 Belgian Civil Code
- Authors
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2022
- Source
- Ghent University Institutional Archive
- Keywords
- Language
- English
- License
- Unknown
- External links
Abstract
In the early nineteenth century, Belgium received all of Napoleon’s codes. Despite a call for national codifications in the 1831 Constitution of independent Belgium, Napoleon’s 1804 Civil Code survived until the twenty-first century. However, in 2016, the Minister of Justice Koen Geens communicated a large-scale recodification program, including a new Civil Code. The code was planned to consist of nine books in an order determined by pragmatic—not doctrinal—considerations without a common method for editing the parts of the code. By 1 November 2020, Book 8 had already entered into force, and Parliament had already approved Book 3, with Books 4 and 5 and a part of Book 2 already being submitted to it. Among the factors explaining this success are the pragmatism and flexibility of the drafting process, the lack of truly revolutionary reforms and the enthusiasm for a new code that Minister Geens generated among law professors and politicians. Thus far, the drafters of the code have not yet dealt with some controversial issues of family law, so that some of the hardest work is still ahead of them. However, there is no doubt that almost two hundred years after independence, Belgium has finally emancipated its private law from France.
