Introduction

At the beginning of the nineteenth century by virtue of the greatest spirit of Enlightenment which characterized it, a modern legislative spirit awoke.

The Spanish system of legislation comprises from then on a collection of compiled and codified laws. Civil law was under reflection in order to elaborate a genuine Code, it means a systematic order of the rules instead the compilation of the Partidas. But in addition, the mercantile law in Spain emancipated from the Consulado del Mar laws and the Ordenanzas de Bilbao, and become a complete code with traces of the previous law. Finally, the question of developing a code of internal procedures was of particular concern of the scholars and jurists

The Constitutionalism and Codification are a relatively new fields of inquiry in which scholars are examining the comparative and connected enterprise of European legal reformism in all the countries and in the America and throughout nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

In order to understand Legal History it is possible to examine a number of themes in using secondary historical writings and primary sources. The final purpose of the materials and links provided in this page is to help students write a specific research report, identify key primary and secondary sources.

Outline

1. The Constitution in Contemporary Spain

1.1. Elements of the new constitutional order

1.1.1. The Individual Rights

1.1.2. National Sovereignty

1.1.3. Separation of powers

1.2. The Spanish Constitutional History

1.2.1. Constitutional Process

1.2.2. Constitutions and Constitutional projects

1.2.3. Process, content and effect

1.3. The new administrative-official institutions in the Constitutional Estate

1.3.1. The Central administration

• • • • • • • The Ministerial system

            • Juntas (Boards)

1.3.2. Territorial administration

• • • • • • • Deputations

            • Governors

1.3.3. The local administration

• • • • • • • Structure and character of the Constitutional Councils
              

2. Codification in Spanish Legal History

2.1. Origins of the Codification

2.2. The codification in Europe

2.3. The meaning of “civil law” (droit civil, Zivilrecht)

2.4. The Codification as a legal process in Spanish absolutism

2.4.1. The Codification in Spain

2.4.2. Civil Codes in Post-Napoleonic era

2. 4.3. Commercial codification

2.4.4. Criminal and Procedural Codification in Spain