Roman law traditions in civil court decisions

Abstract

This article concerns Roman law traditions in contemporary civil case law in Poland. The study examined only those judgments in which the courts explicitly and consciously referred to Roman law in the justification of a given decision. Based on a careful search, 58 judgments from 1920–2025 were selected in which Roman law was used directly and influenced the reasoning and judicial decision-making process. An analysis of these rulings shows that Roman law was used in a historical-comparative, legitimizing, dogmatic-interpretative, and reconstructive manner. The results obtained allow us to conclude that Roman law in the judgments discussed did not only serve as a historical background, but was used in the courts' argumentation process. This study may contribute to the discussion on the role of Roman law in relation to civil law, challenging its exclusively propaedeutic nature.