A Farewell to (Private) Law: Musings on the Belgian Law of Obligations

• Author: Patrick Praet
• Position: Attorney-at-law, Wetteren, Belgium Doctoral Student, University of Tartu
• Pages: 75-84

75

JURIDICA INTERNATIONAL XX/2013

Patrick Praet

Attorney-at-law, Wetteren, Belgium

Doctoral Student, University of Tartu

A Farewell to (Private) Law:

Musings on the Belgian

Law of Obligations*

Introduction

According to Hegel’s Philosophy of Law, ‘[l]aw (right) considered as the realisation of liberty in externals,

breaks up into a multiplicity of relations to this external sphere and to other persons’ (§496). This and other

statements are symptomatic of a received understanding of nineteenth-century (private) law as the legal

expression of economic liberty, or personal freedom—in short, of the individual’s subjectivity, written with a

capital ‘S’, as it were. Although this received understanding may be overstated if not mythologised in toto*1, it

is nonetheless the common self-understanding of the legal profession (as discussed in Section 1 of this paper).

Any move away from this golden age of contractual freedom and spontaneous order, through, for exam-

ple, the advent of the welfare state, the juridif‌i cation of social relations*2, or the birth of the European

Union, automatically threatens to diminish the Subjectivity of the individual as epitomised by the sacro-

sanct freedom of contract

Indeed, the Subjectivity in private-law settings is increasingly limited by scores of national statutes or

European initiatives limiting contractual freedom, usually motivated by an argument referring to market fail-

ure (e.g., for consumer protection) or an expansion of fundamental rights (e.g., anti-discrimination clauses).

As comprehensive coverage of this vast topic is inconceivable within the conf‌i nes of a short paper we

will highlight some features of the transformation process by referring to the Belgian example in the f‌i eld

of obligations and brief‌l y sketch some recent developments in legislation, jurisprudence, and doctrine*3, in

Section 2.*4

* This article was published with support from grant project ETF9209.

1 S. Hofer. Freiheit ohne Grenzen? Privatrechtstheoretische Diskussionen im 19. Jahrhundert. Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck)

2001; J. Rückert. Zur Legitimation der Vertragsfreiheit im 19. Jahrhundert. – D. Klippel (ed.). Naturrecht im 19. Jahrundert.

Goldbach: Keip Verlag 1997, pp. 135–183.

2 M.E. Storme. De juridisering van sociale verhoudingen van de negentiende eeuw tot vandaag. Leuven 2002, pp. 78–121;

L. Blichner, A. Molander: What is juridif‌i cation? Arena Working Paper 14.3.2005. Available via http://www.arena.uio.no/.

3 For a more comprehensive overview of recent developments, see S. Stijns, V. Sagaert, I. Samoy, A. De Boeck (eds). Themis 75 –

Verbintenissenrecht. Brugge: Die Keure 2012; M.E. Storme. Recente ontwikkelingen verbintenissenrecht 2000–2011.

Brussels: Syllabus Vormingsinstituut Advocaten 2012; I. Samoy, T. Dang Vu. Belgium. – J. Herbots (ed.). International

Encyclopaedia of Laws: Contracts. Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer Law International 2011; P. Van Ommeslaghe. Droit des

Obligations. Brussels: Bruylant 2010; P. Wéry. Droit des Obligations I, Théorie Générale du Contrat. Brussels: Larcier 2010.

4 At the conference titled ‘Kümme aastat võlaõigusseadust Eestis ja võlaõiguse areng Euroopas’ [‘Ten years of the Law of

Obligations in Estonia and developments of the law of obligation in Europe’] held in Tartu on 29–30 November 2012, I had

to cut short my paper and presented only the Belgium-focused portion.