Codification (law)

In law, codification is the process of

collecting and restating the law of a
jurisdiction in certain areas, usually by
subject, forming a legal code, i.e. a codex
(book) of law.

Codification is one of the defining features

of civil law jurisdictions. In common law
systems, such as that of English law,
codification is the process of converting
and consolidating judge-made law into
statute law.[1][2][3]

History
Ancient Sumer's Code of Ur-Nammu was
compiled circa 2050–1230 BC, and is the
earliest known surviving civil code. Three
centuries later, the Babylonian king
Hammurabi enacted the set of laws
named after him.

Besides religious laws such as the Torah,

important codifications were developed in
the ancient Roman Empire, with the
compilations of the Lex Duodecim
Tabularum and much later the Corpus
Juris Civilis. These codified laws were the
exceptions rather than the rule, however,
as during much of ancient times Roman
laws were left mostly uncodified.

The first permanent system of codified

laws could be found in imperial
China[note 1] , with the compilation of the
Tang Code in AD 624. This formed the
basis of the Chinese criminal code, which
was eventually replaced by the Great Qing
Legal Code, which was in turn abolished in
1912 following the Xinhai Revolution and
the establishment of the Republic of
China. The new laws of the Republic of
China were inspired by the German
codified work, the Bürgerliches
Gesetzbuch. A very influential example in
Europe was the French Napoleonic code of
1804.

Another early system of laws is Hindu law

framed by Manu and called as Manu
Smriti, dating back to the 2nd century BC.
The use of civil codes in Islamic Sharia law
began with the Ottoman Empire in the 16th
century AD.

Civil law jurisdictions

Civil law jurisdictions rely, by definition, on
codification. A notable early example were
the Statutes of Lithuania, in the 16th
century. The movement towards
codification gained momentum during the
Enlightenment, and was implemented in
several European countries during the late
18th century (see civil code). However, it
only became widespread after the
enactment of the French Napoleonic Code
(1804), which has heavily influenced the
legal systems of many other countries.

Common law jurisdictions

Common law has been codified in many
jurisdictions and in many areas of law:
examples include criminal codes in many
jurisdictions, and include the California
Civil Code and the Consolidated Laws of
New York (New York State).

England and Wales …

The English judge Sir Mackenzie Chalmers

is renowned as the draftsman of the Bills
of Exchange Act 1882, the Sale of Goods
Act 1893 and the Marine Insurance Act
1906, all of which codified existing
common law principles. The Sale of Goods
Act was repealed and re-enacted by the
Sale of Goods Act 1979 in a manner that
revealed how sound the 1893 original had
been.[note 2] The Marine Insurance Act
(mildly amended) has been a notable
success, adopted verbatim in many
common law jurisdictions.

Most of England's criminal laws have been

codified, partly because this enables
precision and certainty in prosecution.
However, large areas of the common law,
such as the law of contract and the law of
tort remain remarkably untouched. In the
last 80 years there have been statutes that
address immediate problems, such as the
Law Reform (Frustrated Contracts) Act
1943 (which. inter alia, coped with
contracts rendered void by war), and the
Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act
1999, which amended the doctrine of
privity. However, there has been no
progress on the adoption of Harvey
McGregor's Contract Code (1993), even
though the Law Commission, together
with the Scots Law Commission, asked
him to produce a proposal for the
comprehensive codification and
unification of the contract law of England
and Scotland. Similarly, codification in the
law of tort has been at best piecemeal, a
rare example of progress being the Law
Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act
1945.
Consolidation bills are routinely passed to
organize the law.

United States …

In the United States, acts of Congress,

such as federal statutes, are published
chronologically in the order in which they
become law – often by being signed by the
President, on an individual basis in official
pamphlets called "slip laws", and are
grouped together in official bound book
form, also chronologically, as "session
laws". The "session law" publication for
Federal statutes is called the United States
Statutes at Large. Any given act may be
only a single page, or hundreds of pages,
in length. An act may be classified as
either a "Public Law" or a "Private Law".

Because each Congressional act may

contain laws on a variety of topics, many
acts, or portions thereof are also
rearranged and published in a topical,
subject matter codification by the Office of
the Law Revision Counsel. The official
codification of Federal statutes is called
the United States Code. Generally, only
"Public Laws" are codified. The United
States Code is divided into "titles" (based
on overall topics) numbered 1 through
54.[4] Title 18, for example, contains many
of the Federal criminal statutes. Title 26 is
the Internal Revenue Code.[5]

Even in code form, however, many statutes

by their nature pertain to more than one
topic. For example, the statute making tax
evasion a felony pertains to both criminal
law and tax law, but is found only in the
Internal Revenue Code.[6] Other statutes
pertaining to taxation are found not in the
Internal Revenue Code but instead, for
example, in the Bankruptcy Code in Title
11 of the United States Code, or the
Judiciary Code in Title 28. Another
example is the national minimum drinking
age, not found in Title 27, Intoxicating
liquors, but in Title 23, Highways, §158 .

Further, portions of some Congressional

acts, such as the provisions for the
effective dates of amendments to codified
laws, are themselves not codified at all.
These statutes may be found by referring
to the acts as published in "slip law" and
"session law" form. However, commercial
publications that specialize in legal
materials often arrange and print the
uncodified statutes with the codes to
which they pertain.
In the United States, the individual states,
either officially or through private
commercial publishers, generally follow
the same three-part model for the
publication of their own statutes: slip law,
session law, and codification.

Rules and regulations that are

promulgated by agencies of the Executive
Branch of the United States Federal
Government are codified as the Code of
Federal Regulations. These regulations are
authorized by specific enabling legislation
passed by the legislative branch, and
generally have the same force as statutory
law.
International law codification
Following the First World War and the
establishment of the League of Nations,
the need for codification of international
law arose. In September 1924, the General
Assembly of the League established a
committee of experts for the purpose of
codification of international law, which
was defined by the Assembly as
consisting of two aspects:

Putting existing customs into written

international agreements
Developing further rules
In 1930 the League of Nations held at the
Hague a conference for the purpose of
codification of rules on general matters,
but very little progress was made.

Following the Second World War, the

International Law Commission was
established within the United Nations as a
permanent body for the formulation of
principles in international law.

Canon law codification

Papal attempts at codification of the
scattered mass of canon law spanned the
eight centuries since Gratian produced his
Decretum c. 1150.[7] In the 13th century
especially canon law became the object of
scientific study, and different compilations
were made by the Roman Pontiffs. The
most important of these were the five
books of the Decretales Gregorii IX and the
Liber Sextus of Boniface VIII. The
legislation grew with time. Some of it
became obsolete, and contradictions crept
in so that it became difficult in recent
times to discover what was of obligation
and where to find the law on a particular
question.
Hardcover of the 1917 Code of Canon Law

Since the close of the ‘’Corpus Juris’’

numerous new laws and decrees had been
issued by popes, councils, and Roman
Congregations. No complete collection of
them had ever been published and they
remained scattered through the ponderous
volumes of the ‘’Bullaria’’ the ‘’Acta Sanctae
Sedis’’, and other such compilations, which
were accessible to only a few and for
professional canonists themselves and
formed an unwieldy mass of legal
material. Moreover, not a few ordinances,
whether included in the ‘’Corpus Juris’’ or
of more recent date, appeared to be
contradictory; some had been formally
abrogated, others had become obsolete by
long disuse; others, again, had ceased to
be useful or applicable in the present
condition of society. Great confusion was
thus engendered and correct knowledge of
the law rendered very difficult even for
those who had to enforce it.[8]

When the Vatican Council met in 1869 a

number of bishops of different countries
petitioned for a new compilation of church
law that would be clear and easily studied.
The council never finished its work and no
attempt was made to bring the legislation
up to date. By the 19th Century, this body
of legislation included some 10,000
norms. Many of these were difficult to
reconcile with one another due to changes
in circumstances and practice. In
response to the request of the bishops at
the First Vatican Council,[9] on 14 May
1904, with the motu proprio Arduum sane
munus ("A Truly Arduous Task"), Pope Pius
X set up a commission to begin reducing
these diverse documents into a single
code,[10] presenting the normative portion
in the form of systematic short canons
shorn of the preliminary considerations[11]
("Whereas...") and omitting those parts
that had been superseded by later
developments.

By the winter of 1912, the "whole span of

the code"[12] had been completed, so that
a provisional text was printed.[12] The 1912
text was sent out to all Latin bishops and
superiors general for their comment, and
their notations which they sent back to the
codification commission were
subsequently printed and distributed to all
members of the commission, in order that
the members might carefully consider the
suggestions.[12] The new code was
completed in 1916.[13] Under the aegis of
Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, the Commission
for the Codification of Canon Law was
completed under Benedict XV, Pius X's
successor, who promulgated it on 27 May
1917[14] as the Code of Canon Law (Latin:
Codex Iuris Canonici) and set 19 May
1918[14] as the date on which it came into
force.[15]In its preparation centuries of
material were examined, scrutinized for
authenticity by leading experts, and
harmonized as much as possible with
opposing canons and even other codes,
from the Codex of Justinian to the
Napoleonic Code. It contained 2,414
canons[16] and was in force until Canon 6
§1 1° of the 1983 Code of Canon Law[17]
took legal effect—thereby abrogating it[18]
—on 27 November 1983.[19]

Recodification
Recodification refers to a process where
existing codified statutes are reformatted
and rewritten into a new codified structure.
This is often necessary as, over time, the
legislative process of amending statutes
and the legal process of construing
statutes by nature over time results in a
code that contains archaic terms,
superseded text, and redundant or
conflicting statutes. Due to the size of a
typical government code, the legislative
process of recodification of a code can
often take a decade or longer.

Notes
1. See Chinese law.
2. For the most part, the Sale of Goods
Act 1979 retains the wording and
section numbers of its 1893
predecessor.

References
1. Weiss, Gunther A. (2000). "The
Enchantment of Codification in the
 Common-Law World" . Yale Journal of
International Law. 25 (2).
2. Lord Scarman on codification [1]
3. Sauveplanne article on codification
[2]
4. Public Law No: 113-287, To enact title
54, United States Code, "National Park
Service and Related Programs", as
positive law.
5. USC table of contents
6. see 26 USC 7201
7. Peters, Life of Benedict XV, pg. 204.
8. Ayrinhac, ‘’General Legislation’’ §55.
 9. Pietro Cardinal Gasparri, preface to the
CIC 1917
10. Manual of Canon Law, pg. 47
11. Manual of Canon Law, pg. 49
12. Peters, Life of Benedict XV, pg. 205.
13. Entry for 'canon law, new code of'.
1910 New Catholic Dictionary.
http://www.studylight.org/dictionaries
/ncd/view.cgi?n=1909 . 1910.
Accessed 14 April 2016
14. La Due, William J., J.C.D.: The Chair of
Saint Peter: A History of the Papacy
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999), pg.
256.
 15. Ap Const. Providentissima Mater
Ecclesia Benedict XV, 27 May 1917
16. Dr. Edward N. Peters, CanonLaw.info
"A Simple Overview of Canon Law" ,
accessed June-11-2013
17. 1983 Code of Canon Law Annotated,
Canon 6 (pg. 34)
18. Dr. Edward Peters, CanonLaw.info ,
accessed June-9-2013
19. NYTimes.com, "New Canon Law Code
in Effect for Catholics ", 27-Nov-1983,
accessed June-25-2013

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