Mathias Wilhelm (Virgilius) Haan (1737–1816) – ein Richter als Gesetzgeber. Sein Erst-Entwurf zum Strafgesetz von 1803 – ein Editionsprojekt

Abstract

Mathias Wilhelm Haan was the driving force behind the legislative work on Part 1 of the Austrian Criminal Code of 1803 – at least in the first phase of the reform work from 1792 to 1796. The original draft of a new criminal law, which he had drawn up in the course of 1792, was negotiated at the beginning of 1793 under his presentation in the Commission in Legislative Matters at the Supreme Court until mid‐1794. Subsequently the draft was printed according to the state of the negotiations. For the purpose to evaluate, the draft was submitted to provincial commissions set up at the Courts of Appeal. Even before these opinions were received by the Commission in Legislative Matters at the Supreme Court, the draft − essentially unchanged – was set into force as a criminal code for Galicia and Bukovina at the end of summer in 1799. Haanʹs draft has an analogous function in comparison with the Galician Civil Code of 1797 as the original draft for the ABGB of 1811; hence, the Galician Criminal Code of 1796 served as the original draft of the Austrian Criminal Law of 1803. In his doctoral thesis submitted 2021, Johannes Domanig edited Haanʹs handwritten draft from 1793 for the first time – though in a university thesis that can only be reached by a very limited circle of readers. In order to make Haanʹs draft available to a larger readership, an edition in the series „Fontes iuris“ (supervised by the Commission for the Legal History of Austria, KRGÖ) is envisaged.