Recodification of the Hungarian Civil Law

Author: Péter Gárdos

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European Review of Private Law, 5/2007. page 702-722

The solution of the Swiss and the Hungarian legislators might seem similar at first sight. Article 7 of the ZGB and Section 205 of the Hungarian Civil Code both serve a practical reason: the legislator regulates only contracts, and then extends the scope of the contractual rules to other legal relations. There is, however, one signif­icant difference between the two codes. The ZGB extends these rules to all relation­ships of private law, while the Hungarian Civil Code extends the scope merely to unilateral declarations. This leads to the result, that certain legal relationships are not regulated by the Code. There are no rules e.g. for the so-called dingliches Rechtsgeschaft (see below in more detail), and the structure of the Code suggests that e.g. the rules of prescription are only applicable in contractual relationships. Under the current regime, it is the task of the judiciary to remedy this problem.

The Conception was not too verbose on this issue. One has to analyse the structure of the Book on Obligations to realise that the drafters intend to break with the original approach. Book V will distinguish between general rules applicable to obligations and general rules applicable to contracts. Part I will contain rules on prescription, computation of time, some major rules on performance (e.g. the time and place of performance) etc., while Part II will contain the ‘classical’ rules of contract law. The Conception contained a longer list, e.g. all rules of unilateral declarations was planned to be regulated in Part I, but the published draft contains a moderate scope.

The draft tries to avoid the intricate and far too scholarly structure of the BGB, and intends to provide a clearer structure at the same time. Those legal institutions, which are very closely linked to contracts will be regulated in Part II (e.g. represen­tation), although the drafters are aware of the fact that these are also applicable to other obligations as well. Part I tries to list those legal institutions, which are appli­cable to all obligations alike.

Although the intention of the legislator could be supported, the outcome could lead to confusion. The judiciary under the current regime is given complete freedom to decide what rules can be applied to unilateral declarations. The draft changes the situation, and it does not refer to the fact that Part I does not contain an exclusive list of common rules applicable to contracts and obligations as well. A further – and probably more significant – problem is that the draft does not give a solution to juristic acts outside the field of the law of obligations. We still do not have an answer on what rules are applicable to juristic acts in the field of property law. Can a juristic act outside of the field of contract law be invalid? If yes, what rules will be applicable to this invalidity, if the rules applicable to invalidity are regulated in Part II of Book V (i.e. among the general rules of contract law)?

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