Abstract
So that the legal nature of nationalisation may be properly understood, we must first consider the structural changes introduced into the law, which precede and accompany nationalisation and at the same time form its foundation.
“We must not be afraid, when the need makes itself felt, to make a realistic analysis of new legal phenomena and to establish the birth of new legal categories.”
G. Vedel, Colloque (3 e ) des Facultés de Droit de France, Le Fonctionnement des Entreprises nationalisées en France, Paris, 1956, p. 192.
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References
Hedemann, op. cit., Deutsches Wirtschaftsrecht, p. 2: “The economy has need of the law. It would indeed collapse if there were no law... but the converse is also true: the law must serve the economy. The law would for its own part collapse if it took no notice of the economy.”
Katzarov, Nouveaux Aspects de l’Immunité judiciaire de l’Etat, op, cit., pp. 439, 431 et seq.
Ponteil, op. cit.y p. 547.
Fr. Marbach, Zur Frage der wirtschaftlichen Staatsintervention, Berne, 1950, p. 252.
Chenot, Zur Frage der wirtschaftlichen Staatsintervention, Berne, 1950, p. 363.
B. Lavergne, Le Problème des Nationalisations, Paris, 1946, pp. 8, 9, 63.
R. Savatier, Les Métamorphoses économiques et sociales du Droit civil d’aujourd’hui, Paris, 1948, p. 13.
R. Savatier, Les Métamorphoses économiques et sociales du Droit civil d’aujourd’hui, Paris, 1948 p. 14.
Duez end Debeyère, Les Métamorphoses économiques et sociales du Droit civil d’aujourd’hui, Paris, 1948 p., p. 1.
Marbach, Les Métamorphoses économiques et sociales du Droit civil d’aujourd’hui, Paris, 1948, p. 100.
Ripert, Le Déclin du Droit, 1948, p. 42: “Ban, permission, command, supervision and management, this is the gamut of State intervention in private interests.”
Ripert, Le Déclin du Droit, 1948, pp. 204 et seq.
Ripert, Le Déclin du Droit, 1948, pp. 270–271, 281–282.
This evolution is dealt with in greater detail below, p. 107 et seq. See also H. Decugis, Les Etapes du Droit, Paris, 1946, p. 231.
Savatier, Du Droit civil au Droit public, Paris, 1946, p. 40.
Savatier, Du Droit civil au Droit public, Paris, 1946, p. 41. 17 Ib., p. 41.
M. Armengaud, Proposition de Loi relative aux activités industrielles de l’Etat etc., Droit social, 1951; No. 1, p. 5.
J. Marchai, Systèmes économiques et Rationalité, Droit social, 1950, No. 8, p. 297.
In French, dirigisme. G. Ripert, Aspects juridiques du Capitalisme moderne,1950, No. 8, p. 210: “Even the expression is not fixed; ‘dirigisme’ or ‘directionisme’? A directed economy, or a concerted, disciplined, supervised, controlled, organised or planned economy? Is it the same thing? Should distinctions be drawn?”
Chenot, Organisation économique de l’Etat, 1950, No. 8, p. 494.
Chenot, Organisation économique de l’Etat, 1950, No. 8, p. 88.
Chenot, Organisation économique de l’Etat, 1950, No. 8, p. 27 et seq.
Chenot, Organisation économique de l’Etat, 1950, No. 8, pp. 91, 92.
Byé, Organisation économique de l’Etat, 1950, No. 8, p. 9.
All the new constitutions which came into effect between 1944 and 1949 (to the number of 29, representing 40% of the number in force in 1949: see Peaslee, Byé, Organisation économique de l’Etat, 1st ed., 1950, General Summary, p. 4) included special sections on the economic structure of the State.
Racine, Organisation économique de l’Etat, 1950, p. xxi;
Voinea, Organisation économique de l’Etat, 1950 p. 3.
Gide and Rist, Organisation économique de l’Etat, 1950 , Vol. I, p. 194.
Ripert, Le Régime démocratique et le Droit civil moderne, 1950 , Vol. I, pp. 228, 229.
Schumpeter, Le Régime démocratique et le Droit civil moderne, 1950 , Vol. I, p. 271.
Savatier, Les Métamorphoses, 1950 , Vol. I, p. 76: “For when we speak of a socialist country, this means that all the resources, all the means of production have, under the legal structure of that country, been placed at the service of the community.”
I. P. Traïnin, The State of Socialism under Construction (in Russian), Review of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 1947, No. 5, p. 301.
E. Huber, Ueber soziale Gesinnung, Berne, 1912, p. 14: “The term “social” always indicates a relationship to, or within, human society, but the use of that term makes for great diversity of view and lack of clarity as to the nature of that relationship.”
W. Burckhardt, Individualismus und Sozialismus, Schweizerische Monatshefte für Politik und Kultur, 1930, fase. 1, p. 4.
Ripert regards contemporary law as “social”, “because it governs human societies, and the adjective adds nothing to the substantive.” Le Déclin du Droit, op. cit., pp. 36–39.
The review Droit social has been appearing in France since 1937. In No. 10, 1949, p. 370 of this review, we find the following definition of droit social given by J. Rivero: “Social law, in this sense, is that designed to apply to collective relations in contrast to the law of individual relations.” And on page 371: “Over and above its techniques, or rather through its techniques, social law is — like every legal order — oriented towards the resolution of social antagonisms; it seeks peace through justice, and is thereby designed for the service of mankind.”
Fourgeaud, op. cit., p. 141.
Voinea, op. cit., p. 13; Chenot, op. cit., p. 17: “A definition of socialism is still more delicate. The word has been fashionable for more than a century and each writer and each party uses it in a different sense”; Marbach, op. cit., pp. 11–12.
Ripert, Le Déclin du Droit, op. cit., p. 39.
Schumpeter, op. cit., p. 299.
Voinea, op. cit., p. 151; A. Hobza, Annuaire de l’Institut de Droit international, Bath Session, 1950, p. 81.
Ripert defines the content of social law as follows: “The body of rules which ensure equality of situation notwithstanding differences of fortune, which succour the weakest and disarm the most powerful, and which organise economic life on the principles of distributive justice.” (Le Déclin du Droit, op. cit., p. 39).
Article 145: “The economic order shall be organized according to principles of social justice.”
Article 30 of the Constitution of Colombia of 1945.
Article 13 of the Constitution of Paraguay of 1940.
See above, p. 34 et seq.
Leverkuehn, op. cit., p. 4 (776).
Ib., pp. 4–7 (776–779).
G. Vedel, Conceptions sociales et Organisation politique, Collection Droit social, XXXI, 1947, pp. 5–12, p. 6; see above, p. 21 et seq.
Especially Article 4 of the Constitution of the USSR of 1936, quoted above, p. 35.
Rivero, Constitutions et Structures sociales, op. cit., p. 4.
But it is not impossible for certain provisions in a liberal constitution to make nationalisation very difficult. In Australia, for example, a statute nationalising the banks has been declared invalid by the courts because of its being contrary to the constitution (above, p. 72). There is also a strong opinion that the U.S.A. Constitution does not allow nationalisation.
Savatier, Du Droit civil au Droit public, 1947, p. 83.
Savatier, Du Droit civil au Droit public, 1947, p. 251 et seq.
Savatier, Du Droit civil au Droit public, 1947, pp. 7, 8, 13, 39.
For certain details on the contribution of private law to the nationalised undertakings on the one hand, and of the public undertakings to private law on the other hand, see R. Houin, La Gestion commerciale des Entreprises nationalisées et le Droit privé, Travaux du Colloque des Facultés de Droit de France, Paris, 1956, p. 219.
Hobza, R. Houin, La Gestion commerciale des Entreprises nationalisées et le Droit privé, Travaux du Colloque des Facultés de Droit de France, Paris, 1956, p. 81: “I regard the transition from the sector of private law to the sector of public law as a historic necessity.”
Hedemann, R. Houin, Wirtschaftsrecht, 1956, p. 205;
Nussbaum, R. Houin , Wirtschaftsrecht,1956 p. 3.
Ch. Rousseau, Principes généraux du Droit international public, Paris, 1944, Vol. I, pp. 76, 83.
Ch. Rousseau, Principes généraux du Droit international public, Paris, 1944., p. 95.
“Absolute discretion” seems to be the nearest English expression.
Savatier, Du Droit civil au Droit public, 1944., p. 15.
Especially the commercial contracts known as “formal” or “absolute”, regarded as such independently of the person making them.
J. Esser, Einführung in die Grundbegriffe des Rechts und des Staates, Vienna, 1949, p. 196: “Thus the distinction between private law and public law rests on feet of clay. The form is maintained, but the substance hardly exists anywhere. And this development is not solely the consequence of the War.”
Ripen, Le Déclin du Droit, 1949, p. 65.
M. S. Strogovitch, Principles of the System of Soviet Socialist Law (in Russian), Review of the USSR Academy of Science, Moscow, 1946, No. 2, p. 81: “In socialist law, the distinction between private law and public law is meaningless.”
M. S. Strogovitch, Principles of the System of Soviet Socialist Law, 1949, p. 12.
For example, certain provisions relating to guardianship, inheritance and insolvency.
M. S. Strogovitch Le Déclin du Droit, 1949, p. 39: “‘Publicisation’ is the way to make law social.”
Lenin had proclaimed at the time of the Revolution, “We recognise nothing private; for us, all spheres of the economy are public law, and not private law.” Levin and Karass, Le Déclin du Droit, 1949, p. 80.
Strogovitch, op. cit. p. 97: “The negation of the division of law into private law and public law merely means that (1) the interests, including the material interests, of the citizens are protected by all branches of the law and not merely by private law; (2) Soviet private law is not a “private” law, that is to say, a law of private property; (3) in all branches of law the interest of the socialist State is protected as representing the interest of the people and of all the citizens of the USSR.”
See the details below, p. 179 et seq.
See below, p. 179 et seq.
See below, p. 191 et seq.
Article 9 of the USSR Constitution of 1936 recognises private ownership of “the small private savings of peasants and craftsmen”, and Article 10 specially protects “personal property”.
See above, p. 7 et seq., and below, p. 116 et seq.
Savatier, Du Droit civil au Droit public, op. cit., p. 63.
Jacquignon, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 9; Hobza, op. cit., p. 81.
Contemporary Soviet literature lists the different provinces of law without drawing a distinction between public law and private law — Strogovitch, op. cit., pp. 97, 98; A. Denisoff and M. G. Kiritchenko, The Bases of the State and Soviet Law (in Russian), Moscow, 1950, pp. 21–22.
Esser, Denisoff and M. G. Kiritchenko, The Bases of the State and Soviet Law (in Russian), Moscow, 1950, p. 196.
Some authors prefer to speak of the “purification” of private law, the “privatisation” of public law or the “deprivatisation” of private law, leaving the expression “socialisation” to the politicians. J. Imbert, Histoire du Droit privé, Paris, 1950, p. 125; Ripert, Le Déclin du Droit, op. cit., pp. 38, 39; Savatier, Du Droit civil au Droit public, op. cit., p. 16.
Savatier,J. Imbert Du Droit civil au Droit public, 1950, p. 9.
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Katzarov, K. (1964). The Socialisation of Law. In: The Theory of Nationalisation. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-1055-4_6
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