Lithuanian law

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Lithuanian Statute I, 1529

Under Lithuanian law refers to the former in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania applicable law, which remained at the private law area in the Lithuanian, white and Little Russian province until 1842, to be replaced then by the Russian private law.

Lithuanian law was essentially based on the ordinances of the former Grand Dukes of Lithuania, but the granting of Magdeburg and Kulm town charter to individual cities had a decisive influence on the development of Lithuanian law.

Important steps in the codification of Lithuanian law were:

  • the Casimir Statute : the first general code of law was issued by Grand Duke Casimir IV in 1468.
  • The Statute of Lithuania : the legal codification of the Lithuanian-Polish state in the 16th century, for the formation and formation of which Polish law and the invading Roman law were also decisive. The 16th century was a cultural heyday in Lithuania. In 1529, 1566 and 1588 3 statutes of Lithuania were drawn up. They testify to a mature legal culture. The last statute of 1588 was valid on the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania even in the 19th century, although the state had long since disappeared from the European map.
  • the Constitution of May 3, 1791 of Poland-Lithuania : it is considered the oldest written constitution in Europe.
  • During the independence of Lithuania from 1918 to 1941, essential Russian codes from the tsarist period continued to apply: the civil procedure code, the civil code, the penal code , the code of criminal procedure - Lithuanian translations were only informative.

After the takeover of the Soviet system and the incorporation of Lithuania into the USSR as a Soviet Socialist Republic , communist law books were introduced.

literature

  • Lithuanian law . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 10, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 835.
  • Juozas Galginaitis, Antje Himmelreich, Rūta Vrubliauskaitė (eds.): Introduction to Lithuanian law . Berlin 2010 ( online ).
  • Laura Šlepaitė: Lithuania . In: Jan M. Smits (Ed.): Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law . Edward Elgar, Cheltenham / Northampton, MA 2006, ISBN 978-1-84542-013-0 , pp. 438-441 .