Landrecht
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Landrecht, Allgemeines Landrecht, or General state laws for the Prussian states (in German Allgemeines Landrecht für die Preußischen Staaten, often abbreviated to ALR), was an important civil code of Prussia, promulgated in 1794 and codified by Svarez and Klein, under the orders of Frederick II. The code had over 19,000 articles, and covered fields of civil law, penal law, family law, public law, administrative law etc.
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[edit] History
[edit] Development
Frederick I of Prussia wanted to create a uniform set of laws, but it was not started until Frederick II. Frederick's idea was not only to create a unified set of laws, but to make them clear and eliminate possible manipulations by different interpretation. A previous attempt, Project eines Corporis Juris Fridericiani (1749-1751), by Samuel von Cocceji, proved unsuccessful.
The General state laws for the Prussian states was finally codified mainly by Svarez and Klein, under the orders of Frederick II, in 1794.
[edit] Usage
The interpretations of code's usage are contradictorily: some interpret the laws as well known for being simple to read and interpret, without much abstract, being rather an every-day regulating laws, but other point that while the code was written in German, it used an incredibly casuistic and imprecise language, making it hard to properly understand and use in practice.
After the second partition of Poland, it was promulgated on the annexed territories as subsidiary law, intended to accelerate the process of their integration with Prussia.
The Landrecht was a typical example of a law of the transition period between feudalism and capitalism, where old institutions of feudal law (ordinations, separate property, class divisions, nobility privileges, subjection of peasants) existed alongside modern ones (definition of property).
The Landrecht stopped functioning after the system was reformed (Stein-Hardenberg) and the feudal remnants were removed.
