Claudio Soliva

Claudio Soliva (born March 13, 1929 in Chur ; † April 7, 2017 ) was a Swiss legal historian and university professor.

Live and act

After graduating from the Bündner Kantonsschule , Soliva completed primary teacher training and taught in school for two years. In 1953, however, he began studying law at the University of Zurich . He completed this and received his doctorate in 1959 under the supervision of Julius Georg Lautner . After research stays in the Netherlands, he completed his habilitation in Zurich in 1965 with a thesis on the federal urban and land law of the Zurich mayor Johann Jacob Leu . In 1968 Soliva became assistant professor in Zurich and in 1974 associate professor. From 1981 until his retirement in 1995, Soliva was a full professor for Swiss and German legal history and private law at the University of Zurich. At the same time he was associate professor for legal history at the then University of St. Gallen, now the University of St. Gallen . From 1980 to 1994, in addition to his Zurich chair, he also held the newly created chair for legal history at the University of St. Gallen. In addition, Soliva was President of the Division Court 12 with the rank of Colonel of Military Justice. From 1986 to 1988 he held the office of Dean of the Zurich Faculty of Law.

In his research, Soliva focused primarily on the history of law in Switzerland in the 18th century. Special attention was paid to the work of the then natural law experts Johann Heinrich Schweizer and Sigmund Ludwig von Lerber and the city law of Zurich and Bern. He also published general publications on the history of legal science and ideas. This also extended to the area of ​​witch trials and comparable “supernatural” phenomena , which he referred to as “aberrecht” based on superstition .

Fonts (selection)

• The appeal of the appeal in the Graubünden civil proceedings , Goldach 1959.
• The renunciations (contractual waiver of objections) in the Zurich documents up to the 14th century , Zurich 1960
• The federal urban and land law of Zurich Mayor Johann Jakob Leu , Wiesbaden 1969.

literature

• Clausdieter Schott and Eva Petrig Schuler (eds.): Festschrift for Claudio Soliva . Schulthess Polygraphischer Verlag, Zurich 1994.
• Lukas Gschwend: Claudio Soliva March 13, 1929–7. April 2017 , ZRG German Department 2018, pp. 707–709.