THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF CATALAN LAW

JAMES I IN THE COURT OF CATALONIA. MlNlATURE OF CONSTITUCIONS DE CATALUNYA

IT WAS NOT UNTIL 1960 THAT A GROUP OF JURISTS ACHIEVED THE PROMULGATION OF THE "COMPILACIÓ DEL DRETCIVIL DE CATALUNYA", WHICH GATHERS TOGETHER THE CATALANJURIDICAL INSTITUTIONS. TODAY, THE PARLIAMENT LEGISLATES NORMALLY AND NEW LAWS ARE INCORPORATED THAT KEEP CATALANLAW UP TO DATE AND MAINTAIN ITS CURRENCY.

JOSEP M. MAS I SOLENCH LA w Y ER

CATALONIA . - PALACE OF JUSTICE, BARCELONA

wo basic elements make up Ca- currency for centuries. The measures is, the received Roman/canonical/feu- talonia's personality: the lan- applied by the Frankish kings to regu- da1 law derived from the school of Bo- guage and the law. Both have late the condition of the Hispanics con- logna. Furthermore, new juridical col- developed attitudes and a way of stitute the first manifestations of public lections appeared, such as the Costurns thinking that are characteristic of the law. de Catalunya and Pere Albert's Corn- Catalan community. The language is Before long, the gathering of nobles, ec- rnernoracions, which were sanctioned the most obvious differentiating sign, clesiastical authorities and leading jud- by the Courts held in Montsó in 1470 because it is manifest in communica- ges around the figure of the count beca- and became part of the Constitucions de tion between the people. The legal me the first nucleus of the county court Catalunya. system, for its own part, distinguishes with the object of collaborating in the Other Barcelona collections were the the people in the way it regulates their work of government and in the admin- "Recognoverunt proceres", which con- conduct. istration of justice. This was the fore- tains civil, mercantile and procedural The Catalan legal system has followed runner of the future Catalan courts. usages, and the Ordinacions de Santa- the historical evolution of the political Visigothic law gradually lost its cur- cilia, which contains dispositions on life of Catalonia and their fortunes have rency, as new customs, laws and consti- rights. The two were also incorporated followed parallel paths. Thus the age of tutions appeared in reply to the de- into the official compilations. splendour of our history coincides with mands imposed by the times and, to- Our courts, whose particularities distin- the greatest power of our legal system, wards the middle of the twelfth century, guished them from similar institutions in the same way that the two have these were gathered together in a com- of their time, reached their peak in the shared their periods of decline. pilation known as Usatges de Barcelona. thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Catalonia can already claim one thou- This compilation was later completed They were not only a political organ, sand years of differentiated historical with injunctions by Alfons 1 the Chaste, but chiefly a legislative one, shared with existence. The various counties which Peter 1 the Catholic and James 1 the the king and based on a pact-making once made up the Spanish March, crea- Conqueror. With a total of 174 chap- policy, one of the characteristics of Ca- ted by the Carolingian Empire, grad- ters, in the thirteenth century it came talonia's legal and political structure, ually freed themselves of Frankish sov- to form a body of law which is now which writers have since studied and of ereignty and coalesced under the hege- considered "the primordial and which Lluís de Peguera, in 1609, said, mony of the Count of Barcelona. The basic element of the Law of the Cata- "in Catalonia the king can not legislate Visigothic law that ruled the country lans". by himself; the king and the people le- before the Saracen invasion survived in At the same time, so-called common gislate conjointly and the laws hold the reconquered lands and continued in law was introduced into Catalonia -that both for the king and for others". -- - PALACE OF JUSTICE. BARCELONA

The courts were made up of representa- However, with the death of Martin 1 the the public law, though the private law tives of the three bracos, or social sec- Humane, the last sovereign of the line was left standing. The Catalan language tors: the church, the military and the of the Catalan counts disappeared. His was banned in the administration of people. At the courts held in Barcelona, successor was elected at a meeting of justice, with the disposition that causes Vilafranca and Cervera in 1358 and delegates which took place at Casp and "would be substantiated in the Castilian 1359, under Peter 111 the Ceremonious, which designated Fernando 1 of Ante- language". an institution was born which was orig- quera, who began the reign of the Tras- Catalan law, then, like the very lan- inally a fiscal organ, but which in time tamara dynasty. guage of Catalonia, was to go through acquired political functions and, with Under the rule of this king "through times of decline and repression, until the name Generalitat, eventually be- pacts elected", it became evident that it the coming of the Renaixenca. In the came the prime organism of the govern- was necessary to unify the Catalan legal last decades of the last century, vindicat- ment of Catalonia. system, which was scattered in various ing voices began to make themselves In the period of Catalan expansion in ordinances, into a single body of law. heard, but it was not until 1960 that, in the Mediterranean, during the twelfth And so, out of the work of the leading spite of adverse circumstances, a cour- to fifteenth centuries, Catalan law was jurists of the time, there arose the Cons- ageous group of jurists achieved the also introduced into Valencia, Mallor- titucions de Catalunya, which were promulgation of the Compilació del ca, Sardinia, Sicily and even the Greek published in Catalan translation for Dret Civil de Catalunya, in which are duchies. the first time in 1495. Subsequently, to gathered the Catalan juridical insti- It was during this period that the core keep them up to date, other compila- tutions, thus managing to revive interest of customs of the sea-faring men of tions were drawn up in 1588- 1589 and in our legal system. Barcelona's shoreline district formed 1702, which were published under the For this reason, when Catalonia recov- the beginning of the Llibre del Con- title Constitucions i altres drets de Cata- ered her autonomy, and with it the leg- solat de Mar, which contained the lunya. islative capacity of the Parlament de maritime and mercantile usages and Unfortunately, not long after the com- Catalunya, this parliament revised and regulations of the Mediterranean. This pilation of 1702, the dispute over the adapted the text of the Compilació, pro- book constituted the most important succession which arose after the death mulgating it once more in Catalan in source of modern maritime law and of King Charles 11, the last member of 1984. Today, the parliament legislates was translated into severa1 languages. the House of Austria, led to the War of normally and new laws are passed that It remained in currency until the pro- Succession, in which a defeated Catalo- modify and up-date Catalan law and mulgation of the code of commerce of nia lost her autonomy, and the so-called maintain its currency. ¤ 1824. "Decret de Nova Planta" suppressed