Determining the Manner of the Funeral in the Romanian Civil Code: A Legal Transplant?

Abstract

The Romanian Civil Code of 2009 provided expressis verbis for the first time the right to determine the manner of the funeral. It already appeared in the draft of the new Civil Code adopted by the Senate on 13 September 2004, but the preparatory works (if any) have not been made public. The only relevant document in circulation – prior to the bill's registration in Parliament in 2009 – contains the amendments made to the draft by the committee set up in 2006 by the Ministry of Justice and charged with revising the draft. Therefore, this study aims to highlight the origins of this provision from the Romanian Civil Code, thus contributing to its understanding and, implicitly, to the correct application of the rule. The main conclusion drawn from the analysis carried out
is that the regulation is a legal import which, however, does not constitute an exact copy of the corresponding text from the Civil Code of Québec, but a transposition, the imported rule being adapted to the legislator's vision of national cultural identity and legal culture.