Czech inheritance law and the significance of tradition

The article deals with the importance of the Czech-Austrian legal tradition in Czech inheritance law, particularly with the inter-war recodification (1920–1938) and the contemporary literature. In the first part it analyses the inspirational sources of new inheritance law in general. Next part describes the course of the recodification works in the inter-war era. The third part of the article analyses the scope and particular form of the First Republic inspiration. The last part describes personalities and literature of inheritance law until the middle of the 20th century. The last recodification of Czech private law (2000–2012), finished by issuance of the new Civil Code (Act No. 89/2012 Sb.), built on the Czech-Austrian legal tradition represented by the interwar proposals from 1931 and 1937. The comparisons suggest that the recodification of inheritance law followed a super revision proposal (1931) even more than the government bill (1937), in some institutes it coincides with the (West) Galician Civil Code (1797), which became the direct precursor of the General Civil Code – ABGB (1811).