The French Civil Code was adopted on March 2 1804. In addition to the general provisions, the code is divided into three parts. Article 228 1 is on the cover of the first edition of the French Civil Code. The first part is personal law, which contains the provisions of personal law and relative law, and is actually about the subject of civil rights. The second part is the Property Law, which contains provisions on various properties, ownership and other property rights. In fact, it is about the static object of civil rights. The third part is called "various methods to obtain ownership". The content is quite complicated: firstly, inheritance, gift, will and marital property system are stipulated; Secondly, the debt law is stipulated, and the mortgage law is attached; Finally, the prescription of acquisition and extinction are stipulated. This part is actually about the provisions of various possibilities for the object of civil rights to be transferred from one right subject to another.
Legislative principles This code can be summarized into three principles: the principle of freedom and equality, the principle of ownership and the principle of contractual autonomy.
As far as the principles of freedom and equality are concerned, the law includes two basic provisions. Article 1 1 stipulates: "All French people enjoy civil rights." Civil rights refer to non-political rights, including personal rights, relatives' rights and property rights. Article 488 stipulates that an adult (changed from 1974 to 18) has reached the age of 2 1 one year, and after reaching this age, he has all the capacity in civil life except for the exceptions stipulated in the marriage seal. That is to say, in principle, everyone enjoys equal capacity for civil conduct from the day of adulthood, although there are certain legal restrictions on the enjoyment of this capacity.
(2) As far as the principle of ownership is concerned, Articles 544-546 of this Law give the owners of movable and immovable property full and extensive rights and guarantees. The definition of ownership is "the right to use, benefit and dispose of things absolutely without restriction". The expropriation of private property by the state can only be based on the reasons of public welfare, and on the condition that all people get fair and prior compensation. The owner of both movable property and immovable property has the right to obtain everything produced by and attached to the property. This provision enables the bourgeois means of production to be freely used, profited and sold, and at the same time, farmers' private land is also guaranteed. The code also stipulates the usufruct and easement of other people's property, which is very important to the small-scale peasant economy.
③ autonomy of contract will, or the principle of freedom of contract, is stipulated in Article 1 134: "A contract established according to law has the same legal effect among the parties who conclude the contract." Unless the contract violates the public order and good customs mentioned in Article 6 of the Code, it has no legal effect. A contract is an agreement with two or more expressions of will, the purpose of which is to produce some legal effect, or to transfer the ownership from one person to another, or to generate some debts, or to discharge the debts previously concluded by the parties, or just to change some existing agreements. This code endows two or more individuals with the same expression of meaning that is equivalent to legal effect, so that they have mutual rights and obligations through their own actions, thus changing their original legal status. Therefore, contract autonomy is also called party autonomy. Once a contract is legally established, the parties must perform it in good faith according to the agreement, and may not change or terminate it without the consent of * * * *. The property of the parties to the contract, even the person (the civil detention of the debtor in breach of contract was originally stipulated in the code), is the guarantee for the performance of the contract. Based on these concepts, legislators have formulated a series of regulations: compulsory performance of contractual obligations, damages for non-performance, delay in performance, bankruptcy procedures of debtors, and so on.
In the French Civil Code, more than 1000 articles are used to stipulate the obligations of contracts, which shows the importance of contracts to capitalist society. Contract autonomy is also implemented in the name of formal equality and freedom, which is the logical result of the principle of freedom and equality. Marx profoundly criticized this principle in Das Kapital.
With the changes in the political, economic and social situation in France in the past 65,438+000 years, the Code has been revised more than 65,438+000 times to constantly adapt to the new situation.
The influence of code has considerable influence in many bourgeois countries. First of all, it is applicable to some countries where 1804 originally belonged to France, so it has been within its effective scope since the date of implementation of the code. Belgium and Luxembourg still regard it as their own code. This code is still in force in some former colonies in France. For example, the current civil code in Quebec, Canada, is based partly on this code and partly on Paris customary law. Louisiana, USA began to adopt this code from 1825, but made some modifications and supplements. Secondly, some countries have formulated their own civil codes based on this code. For example, the Danish Civil Code of 1838 is based on this code, and the Greek Civil Code of 1940 is also based on this code. Finally, the civil codes of many countries were influenced to some extent by this code when they were compiled, such as German Civil Code 1896, Swiss Civil Code 1907, Portuguese Civil Code 1867, Spanish Civil Code 1889 and Spanish Civil Code 6544.
German civil code
Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch
The Civil Code enacted by the German Empire in 1896. 10 0900+65438+ 1, which continues to apply to Germany * * * and Germany. This is the second important civil code in capitalist countries after the French Civil Code. It inherited the tradition of Roman law, combined with some habits of Germanic law, and was formulated according to the new situation of capitalist economic development in the19th century, so its content exceeded the scope of legal principles in the period of free capitalism and met the needs of monopoly capitalism to some extent. However, in some places, it still retains the characteristics of the German junker landlord economy. In terms of legislative technology, it is different from the French Civil Code, and its provisions are clear and concise. The full text consists of 2385 articles, which are divided into five parts: general rules, debt relations, property rights, relatives and inheritance. In addition, article 2 18 of the implementation law is attached, which are mostly rules of applicable law. Some provisions of this code have been revised many times, especially during Nazi rule. After the Second World War, the two parts of kinship and inheritance were greatly revised. There are also some amendments or supplements to the other three separate laws, but the basic content of the code has not changed. This code has a great influence on the laws of some countries. The Chinese Civil Codes of Switzerland, Austria, Japan, Thailand and the Republic of China all participated in this Civil Code to varying degrees. Therefore, western legal scholars believe that the German Civil Code is the representative code of the German legal system which coexists with the French legal system in the civil law system.