The future of European contract law from the perspective of a Polish scholar
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The Future of European Contract Law from the Perspective of a Polish Scholar Fryderyk Zoll* With accession to the European Union, Poland obtained influence on the development of European law. Before accession, Poland, which had been seeking membership in the EU, was obliged under international law (European Treaty of 1991) Lto implement gradually the law of the Communities. It was necessarily only a one-way process. Poland could only follow European legislation, without the possibility of taking part in the law-making process. This exclusion also had a deeper dimension: the participation of Polish scholars in various research groups working on Community law was seriously limited. With accession the situation has changed and is still changing. Poland is at present a full member in the process of law-making within the Community but the activity of Polish scholars in different fields of European law-making is increasing as well. This new situation has forced us, scholars from new member states, to join the discussion on the future of European contract law. I think that the Polish perspective on the creation of new legal concepts in Europe may be interesting and useful because my country has experience in combining a diversity of legal traditions and bringing them into a unified law. Poland has had a broken history of legal development. Original Polish law evaporated with the partition of the country by the end of the 18th century. Only a few concepts contained in the Lithuanian Statutes 2 still remained and had some limited influence on the Russian Collection of Laws. Polish law was replaced by foreign legal systems and traditions. German, Austrian, French, Russian and Hungarian laws organised the life of the divided country? With the regaining of independence after World War I the newly born state decided to unify its laws. In 1919 the Codification Commission was established? This body was composed of professors and outstanding practitioners; the elite of the country. The President of this Commission could declare proudly: "There are two Presidents in the country the President of the Republic and I"? It was obvious that unification of the law was necessary - a unified legal system was required to facilitate the process of bringing together different parts of the formerly divided country. The diversity of legal systems was an obstacle in the unification process of the Poland as a whole. Legal relations among Polish citizens (personal, commercial etc.) were
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Dr hab. Fryderyk Zoll: Professor of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow and L. Ko~mifiski College of Law in Warsaw'. Dz. U. 1994, No 23, position 188. The English Edition of the Statutes of Lithuania: Vilnius. Artlora 2002. On the impact of the Statutes on Russian law see: F . ~ . IlIepmeHeBHq, Kypc r p a x a a n c K o r o npaBa; reprint of the original textbook of G E Szerszeniewiez (l 863 - 1912), TyJIa 2001, p. 45. L. G6rnicki, Prawo cywilne w pracaeh Komisji Kodyfikacyjnej Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w latach 1919 1939, Wroclaw 2000, p. 69. Dziennik Pr
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