Prace Komitetu Cywilnego Reformy nad przygotowaniem narodowej kodyfikacji prawa cywilnego i procedury cywilnej w przededniu utworzenia Królestwa Polskiego (1814 – 1815) – edycja źródłowa. Część I

Works of the Civil Reform Committee on the Civil Law and Civil Procedure Codification on the Eve of the the Establishement of Kingdom of Poland (1814–1815) – Historical Source Edition. Part I

The present paper is an introduction to the source edition of 13 documents concerning the organization of the Civil Reform Committee and the Committee’s work on changes in civil law and civil procedure. The Civil Reform Committee was appointed by Tsar Alexander I on 19 May 1814 in connection with the plan to transform the Duchy of Warsaw into the Kingdom of Poland, a Russian client state. Participants of the Committee’s works were Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, Mikołaj Nowosilcow, Tomasz Ostrowski, Stanisław Zamoyski, Tadeusz Matuszewicz, Aleksander Linowski, Józef Kalasanty Szaniawski, Tomasz Wawrzecki, Franciszek Grabowski, Antoni Bieńkowski, Józef Koźmian, and Andrzej Horodyski.The Committee’s goal was to prepare a reform of the administration, the treasury, and the codes of civil and penal law. The Tsar’s guidelines urged the Committee to sever all ties with the French models and to draw from native traditions. As regards civil law and civil procedure, the works reached a moderate degree of advancement. Only outlines of the future codes and fragmentary legislative drafts were prepared. Even though these works may be deemed to have been a beginning of Polish codification of law within the modern meaning of the word, the documents used in this process have been heretofore used sparsely by historians, including historians of law. Thus the need for their publication. At the same time we are publishing fundamental documents concerning the organization of the Committee itself.