Between Tradition and Modernity: Professor Jan Gwiazdomorski’s Concepts of the Law of Persons in the Drafting of the Civil Code

Abstract

The article expounds the views of Professor Jan Gwiazdomorski (1899–1977) on the development of the law of persons in the course of the drafting of the Civil Code during the 1950s and 1960s. The author looks at the Professor’s contribution to the work of the Substantive Civil Law Team of the Codification Commission, with a particular focus on his analysis of capacity to perform legal acts and the institution of legal incapacitation. The paper sets out, i.a., the Professor’s proposal to reduce the age at which limited capacity to perform legal acts is acquired from 13 to 10 years, his position regarding the implications of the annulment of marriage for the attainment of majority, and his demands for the extension of protection to persons afflicted with mental illness or mental disability. Attention is likewise drawn to the significance of these proposals in the broader context of Poland’s pre-war legislative traditions and the post-war socio-economic exigencies. The analysis, conducted through the application of historical-legal and dogmatic methods, brings to light the characteristic feature of Professor Gwiazdomorski’s scholarship, namely the integration of dogmatic systematics with the imperative of safeguarding the individual and ensuring the security of legal transactions. Although many of his proposals were not incorporated into the Civil Code adopted in 1964, they nonetheless constitute an important record of the then codification debate, and certain issues – such as the age for the acquisition of limited capacity – continue to resonate in present-day deliberations on the reform of the law of persons.