Codification of the contract law in Lithuania : example of distribution contracts

Codification of the contract law has been always a question of importance for any country. Lithuania which restored it's Independence on 11th March 1990 makes no exception. The Civil code of Lithuania was adopted in year 2000, i.e. ten years after regaining it's Independency from the Soviet Union, and four years before joining the European Union on 1st May 2004.

The latter Codification of the contract law is no homogenous. This paper attempts to identify the origins of this codification. On the one hand, rules on individual contracts, are on a large scale the transplant of the rules of the Civil code of Russian Federation. On the other hand, regarding the General Part of the contract law of Lithuanian Civil code, to some extent, it was a legal transplant of the Principles of International Commercial Contracts 1994. Thus, contract law of Lithuania is a legal transplant of different legal traditions: a legal patchwork.

Simultaneously to the legislative process, the fast growth of a free market economy in Lithuania developed various economic activities, previously unregulated under the Soviet law, including that of distribution of goods. This development of complex legal relations constitutes a perfect occasion to the legal system in general, and to the case-law in particular, to try out the strength, ability to cope, and to test the limits of the codification.

As regarding to the interpretation and application of above-mentioned legal patchwork there could be distinguished two main directions which are followed by the case-law. First direction constitutes efforts to interpret the text within the epistemology of the legal transplants. Second direction of the case-law constitutes a try out to formulate it's autonomous hermeneutics of the text of law. First direction is not followed by the case-law, the second direction faces the need of solid law on obligations. In this paper French law plays an important role to propose a perspective of as a system which is in position to propose solid answers to Lithuanian contract law.