Codification and Consolidation of the Law at the Present Time

Abstract

Law reform is now under consideration in most countries of the world and practically everywhere, the problem of the instruments of this reform arises: should the reform be carried out by the decisions of judges or by statute, and if by statute, must such law be codified?Common law countries are both attracted and at the same time frightened by codification. This may well be the situation here in Israel, where the common law tradition is still deeply rooted but where there is also a certain tradition in favour of codification.At any rate, the subject cannot be treated today as it would have been a century ago. The old controversies about the usefulness of codification in the abstract are out of fashion. In England, the fierce attacks of Jeremy Bentham against the common law—“dog law”—have had no influence on the development of English law. On the continent, Savigny and the German Historical School did not prevent the progressive codification of German law nor the adoption in the other countries throughout the nineteenth century of codes inspired by the French model.