Falcidian law

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The Falcidic Law ( Lex Falcidia de Legatis ) was a Roman law from the year 41 BC. BC, which had come about through a plebiscite at the request of the tribune Publius Falcidius . It regulated the amount of a minimum inheritance in Roman inheritance law .

The law stipulated that no one was allowed to dispose of more than three quarters of their wealth through bequests . The heir should have at least a carefree quarter of the estate. According to Gaius , the rejection of encumbered inheritances by de facto disinherited heirs should be prevented, which would have resulted in the ineffectiveness of the legacies according to Roman law on the compulsory portion. Until its enactment, the previous legal regulations from the lex Cincia , the lex Furia testamentaria and the lex Voconia had failed to the extent that they had been enacted to curb luxury-oriented ways of life, but were undermined by legal finesse and did not find broad recognition.

Every heir, both testamentary and legal, had a right to this quart. Since the inheritance that was passed on was also to be protected from the imperial era , a notary right ( querela inofficiosi testamenti ) was developed at the same time, which secured at least a quarter of the inheritance for the unconsidered heir. If there were several co-heirs, at least a quarter of their inheritance had to remain for each after deduction of the legacies. All bequests, endowments and gifts in the event of death were subject to the deduction of the quart, but not gifts among the living.

With regard to the calculation of the quart, the following should be noted:

  1. In order to determine whether the inheritance is so overloaded with legacies that the quart must be withdrawn, the size of the inheritance as it is at the time of the death of the testator must be considered;
  2. the quart is to be calculated from the pure assets of the testator, i.e. after deduction of debts;
  3. the heir only needs to have what he receives as heir, not what he receives as legatee from the estate, in his quarters.

The right to deduct expired if the testator expressly forbade their payment or if the heir waived it. The law did not apply to bequests to charitable foundations or to the will of soldiers . Here the testator was granted greater testamentary freedom .

The Falcidian law found its way into the Corpus Iuris Civilis of the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian . Since then, the heir has been entitled to demand an increase in the compulsory portion of each legatee. Weighting the minimum inheritance was ineffective, so that a carefree quarter was ensured. This neighborhood was built in medieval Legitime right falzidische quart (Quarta Falcidia) called.

The legal institution of the Falzidian Quart was unknown in the Prussian land law , in the Austrian and Saxon civil codes and in French law . Only the Zurich Private Law Code (PBG) from 1855 by Johann Caspar Bluntschli adhered to it.

It was expressly not included in the civil code .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ulrich Manthe : The senatus consultum Pegasianum (= Freiburg legal-historical treatises. New part 12). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-428-06637-5 , p. 16, here FN 11, (also: Freiburg (Breisgau), University, habilitation thesis, 1985).
  2. ↑ Gai. 2, 227.
  3. ^ Heinrich Honsell: Roman law. 5th, supplemented edition. Springer, Berlin et al. 2001, ISBN 3-540-42455-5 , pp. 197-198.
  4. ↑ Uwe Wesel : History of the law. From the early forms to the present. 2nd, revised and expanded edition. CH Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-47543-4 , pp. 204-206 (205).
  5. ↑ Jakob Fortunat Stagl: The "testamentum militare" in its capacity as "ius singulare". In: Revista de estudios histórico-jurídicos. No. 36, 2014, ISSN  0716-5455 , pp. 129–157, doi : 10.4067 / S0716-54552014000100004 .