Legal custom in civil law of the Second Polish Republic

The paper inspects the role of a custom in civil law of interwar (1918-1939) Poland. It notes that the unification of national legislation took place in the Second Polish Republic, including the field of civil law. The codification that had been launched faced significant difficulties, as in different regions of restored Poland different legislation systems had functioned previously (Austrian, German, Russian ones). Due to objective reasons, legislators had not managed to finalize their own Civil Code until the outbreak of World War II. Nonetheless, different branches of civil law adopted several regulatory acts aiming to harmonize the existing differences in the civil legal relations of a single state. The important documents in civil law were The Code of Obligations of 1933 and the Trade Code of 1934. The paper analyzes the role and significance of a custom in those and other regulatory acts. Indeed, The Code of Obligations did not set a legal definition of a custom and related terms. Nevertheless, the effect of a custom was widely used in determining the conditions under which an obligation was to be fulfilled. Custom, along with contract and law, influenced the material and financial obligations of the parties. The custom also played an important role in landlord-tenant relations. The paper examines the articles of the Trade Code which identify the custom and terms related to it. Indeed, Article 1 already outlines the existence of custom law and algorithms of its implementation. The Code essentially equated custom law with economic law. The author depicts how the legal definition of a custom law was used by lawmakers. It is noted that trade customs were a type of fair dealing or good faith behavior customs known to common law, in particular, the law of obligations of interwar Poland. In addition to the Trade Code and the Code of Obligations, custom law was also mentioned in other legal acts. In particular, in the laws on bills of exchange and check law. The author concludes that the civil law of the Second Polish Republic was actively utilizing concepts of a custom, custom law, trade custom and the so-called custom of fair circulation.