ОДГОВОРНОСТ ЗА ШТЕТУ ОД ОПАСНЕ СТВАРИ - ПРИМЕНА ФРАНЦУСКОГ ПРАВА НА МАУРИЦИЈУСУ
STRICT LIABILITY (MAURITIUS IS STILL AN ISLE DE FRANCE)

Summary/Abstract: Mauritius (under its former name L'Isle de France) continues to live under French Civil Law although the supreme judicial authority remains the Privy Council. This system started after the surrender of the island to the English in 1810. In fact, Article 8 of the Act of Surrender envisaged that the inhabitants retain their religion, law and customs. This implied that as they had been in effect before this Act, the French Codes (of Commerce, of Civil Procedure and especially the Civil Code) constituted the laws of the Island. Therefore, with the passage of time, the courts of Mauritius were led to ask themselves whether they were constrained in the same way by the cases of the French courts, as they were by French law. In one case (Mangroo v. Dahal, 1937), the Supreme Court of Mauritius refused to follow the doctrine of the Cour de Cassation in the Jand'heur case, saying that the decisions of the French courts certainly had persuasive authorities in the island, but not binding force. Afterwards, under the influence of E. Venchard (Solicitor General at the time), the legislature of Mauritius adopted an update to the Civil Code that was in effect on the island, by introducing more than two hundred new articles, including new wording for Article 1384. Paragraph 6 of this article, concerning the question debated, was reworded as follows: "this responsibility applies unless ... the holder of the object proves that the damage was caused by a force majeure or by the exclusive fault of the victim".

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