Codes - a few thoughts of a French civil law and doctrine

In the two large families of codificaiion,, namely administrative codification and normative codificaiion, doctrines of law do not play any role in the development of the former, while their influence is decisive in the latter. It may even be asserted that one of the conditions of enacting such a codificaiion is the existence of an adequate doctrinal basis. As such, the projects for a European Civil Code or a European Code of Obllgations may only materialize once adequate doctrine has been developed, which is currently underway. The systematic formulations of doctrine also play an important role once the codes are in force, of whatever nature they may be; yet initially the role of doctrine is not much different from the one it assumes when examining non- codified rules : it interprets. In time, the rules in codes evolve while doctrine attempss to ensure overall consistency; then further on in time, the workings of doctrine serve as a driving force to convince the normaiive power of the need or utility for proceeding with re- codificaiion. It may be concluded then that codificaiion after all seems to be inseparabee from doctrine, even if the authors of doctrine are not necessarily aware of this dynamic tandem in evolution.