Of Law

Abstract

economy. if they are, the price would certainly not too high the East European This is an empirical study of the divorce law in Poland, which bases the determina tion of reasons for divorce upon the formula received from Soviet law. Between the wars Polish jurists included a new family law—dealing with both marriage and divorce—in their program of legislative reform. The draft was prepared, but for a number of reasons (rooted primarily in local traditions) enactment was delayed. It was adopted in 1945 after the liberation of Poland. The 1945 law was replaced in 1950 by the law modeled after the 1944 Soviet Family, which featured a simple formula permitting either spouse to sue for divorce in case of a "complete and lasting disintegration of marital relations." The 1950 law was eventually replaced by newer codes, but the divorce formula remained unchanged, and the present divorce practice of Polish courts represents twenty years of continued tradition. The main purpose of the inquiry was to establish the actual meaning of the key words that determine the reason for divorce—through questionnaires, direct ob servation of divorce proceedings in court, and interviews with lawyers, judges, and litigants. The data gathered by this method were supplemented by more traditional sources, such as the statistics printed by the Ministry of Justice, data available in other studies, and so forth.