Consideraţii generale cu privire la reforma dreptului obligaţiilor în Codul civil francez
General considerations on the reform of the right of obligations in the French Civil Code

Summary/Abstract: The paper is made up of two parts. In the first part, the author shortly describes the origin and history of the reform of the French Civil Code, until the adoption and, respectively, the entry into force of the Ordinance no. 131 of 10 February 2016, by which the reform of the common law of contracts, the general legal regime and the evidence of obligations were made. Thus, the first reform attempts had as object the entire French Civil Code and started upon celebration of the centenary of this important legislative monument. All these attempts successively failed, and for this reason, it was finally considered that it was better for the reform to be made “step by step”, namely matter by matter or by institutions. Thus, after the reform of the law of persons, of the family law and of the regulations regarding the limitation period, under the impetus of the European projects of harmonization of the law of contracts and having as working bases the reform pre-projects advanced by the specialized doctrine (P. Catala Pre-project and Fr.Terré Pre-project), Ordinance no. 131 of 10 February 2016 was adopted concerning the reform on the law of contracts, on the general legal regime and on the evidence of obligations, entered into force on 1 October 2016. The second part of the paper detects the principle purpose of this reform, as well as its most important objectives. Thus, the main purpose expressly declared by the French legislator is represented by the modernisation, simplification and improvement of the legibility of the regulations for the purpose of enhancing the accessibility of the common law of contracts, of the general legal regime and of the evidence of obligations. Moreover, the specialized doctrine also formulated the goals of the reform, upholding that they are: the accessibility, the attractiveness of the regulations by their flexibility and protection of the weaker contracting party. The end of the analysis acknowledges that in the light of the legal texts based on which the reform of the law of obligations was made, it results that there is an obvious and necessary balance between: old and new, contractual liberalism and solidarity, the freedom of will of the contracting parties and the powers conferred on the judge as regards the contract during the entire period of its existence. Anyway, it may be stated on sufficient grounds that two concepts coexist in a symbiotic way in the new French law of contracts: an egalitarian concept, which is presumed ad based on the free will of the contracting parties and a non-egalitarian concept from the structural point of view, anchored in the power relationships, where the most important part is played by the powers and authorities which law confers on the judge.

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