1919th Prehistory

From Thai Codification Codes of 1925

Prehistory of the Draft and Its Thai Translation

Introduction: Draft of 1919 and the "Archives of the History of Thai Codification"

In 1919, the final version of the Draft “Civil and Commercial Code for the Kingdom of Siam” was submitted to the Siamese government. The procedure of its codification has then begun to proceed properly. The time of over 100 years has lapsed since the time. In such circumstances, it would be just an appropriate opportunity to reconsider how much the French advisers to the Siamese government at the time really contributed to the modernization of the Siamese law, especially in the field of civil law. This task of the reassessment of the French contribution requires also another task; namely the effort to exactly identify whole the historical steps toward establishing the Civil and Commercial Code.

For such a research project, the “Archives of the History of Thai Codification” (with 282 entries) would be absolutely essential materials. Among these publicly accessible digital archives, however, those archives regarding Civil and Commercial Code show such a wide range of variety so that it is not easy to get an overview of them. For this reason, it would be reasonable to take a strategical approach to them. In a following way, I would like to propose one of such possible strategies.

There are obviously several “Milestones” in the whole codification process of the Civil and Commercial Code. In this moment, I would like to limit our research targets to the first three books of the Code; namely General Principles, General Part of Obligations, and Specific Contracts, and regarding the first three books, I would propose to set up following six “Milestones”:

  •     I. The initial Draft Civil and Commercial Code for the Kingdom of Siam in 1910 and 1912
  •     II. The fourth Draft in 1914 and its Thai Translation
  •     III. The final Draft of 1919 and its Thai Translation and Revision (1919 – Nov. 1923)
  •     IV. The first Revision of Book III (1923 – Jan. 1925)
  •     V. The Revision of Book I and II (Jan. – Nov. 1925)
  •     VI. The second Revision of Band III (1926 – Jan. 1929)

For each step of these Milestones, I would like to select firstly following Archives as main research objects:

I. Draft Civil and Commercial Code for the Kingdom of Siam in 1910, 1912

(1) Archive Title: "DRAFT CIVIL COMMERCIAL CODE OBLIGATIONS OCTOBER 1910"

  • Period: October 1910.
  • Archive ID: 163451 or Vol.56 (https://digital.library.tu.ac.th/tu_dc/frontend/Info/item/dc:163451).
  • The Codification Project for Civil and Commercial Code started in 1908. This Document shows its initial concept of the whole Civil and Commercial Code (“Preliminary draft”) developed by the French advisers. The following structure of the contents was proposed"
    • 1. Preliminary: General Provisions
    • 2. Book I: Persons and Family
    • 3. Book II: Real Rights or Things
    • 4. Book III: Obligations
    • 5. Book IV: Inheritance and Wills
    • 6. Book V: Provisions of International Private Law
  • According to the report of Dr. Tokichi Masao, it was a compromise between Mr. Georges Padoux and Dr. Masao. Mr. Padoux had planed to follow the French "Justinian System" while Dr. Masao preferred the German "Pandects System". As a result of the negotiation between them, Mr. Padoux and Dr. Masao agreed with the proposal to introduce a "Preliminary" at the top of the Code. This first draft, however, contains only Book III “Obligations” with 1015 sections.
  • This old Draft was simply a beginning, bat it has certain importance for us because it contains "references" to each section, it means, the information about relevant foreign laws which were taken in consideration during their drafting work. This information must be one of the important sources for the table of model laws which พระยามานวราชเสวี used to call “INDEX”. Moreover, its table of the “Abbreviations” shows that the “Swiss Federal Code of Obligations, promulgated on June 14th 1881” was referred besides the “Swiss Civil Code, promulgated on December 10th, 1907”.
  • Unfortunately, this circumstance caused later a complication regarding the entries in the "INDEX" as follows. The reference to the "Swiss Federal Code of Obligations of 1881" remained in the "INDEX" for Book III. During the revision work of Book III in 1924, the drafters took the "Swiss Code of Obligations promulgated on March 30th, 1911" into consideration. In the INDEX, however, this difference between the Code of 1881 and the new Code of 1911 is not clearly marked. For example, Art. 229 of the Swiss Code was referred in Sec. 453. The number 229 was however the article number in the "Swiss Federal Code of Obligations" (F.C.O.) while the same article has a different number of 184 in the current "Swiss Code of Obligations" (S.O.).

(2) Archive Title: "DRAFT CIVIL AND COMMERCIAL CODE FOR THE KINGDOM OF SIAM BOOK I, II, III"

  • Period: June 1912.
  • Archive ID: 163452 or Vol.57 (https://digital.library.tu.ac.th/tu_dc/frontend/Info/item/dc:163452).
  • According to the utterance of Mr. René Guyon (Vol35; 35/82), the Draft of 1914 was the fourth version. Therefore, this Draft of 1912 was probably its third version under the direction of Mr. Padoux with the following three Books, namely:
    • Book on Obligations
    • Book on Persons and Family
    • Book on Inheritance
  • “Book on Things” is still missing. The initial part “Preliminary: General Provisions” in the initial concept of 1910 was moved to the top of the “Book on Obligations”. This concept will be maintained until the final version of 1919.
  • The second Book “Persons and Family”, however, caused a severe conflict between Mr. Padoux and Dr. Masao. The collision was so intensive that the complete discussion about the laws on family and inheritance had to be suspended. Dr. Masao gave up the cooperation with Mr. Padoux and left the Kingdom of Siam. He intended to return to the Kingdom as ambassador to prevent enactment of such a Code through diplomatic negotiation.

[II] Draft Civil and Commercial Code for the Kingdom of Siam in 1914

(3) Archive Title: "ร่างประมวลกฎหมายแพ่งและการค้าขาย"

[III] Draft Civil and Commercial Code for the Kingdom of Siam in 1918 and 1919

(4) Archive Title: "DRAFT CIVIL AND COMMERCIAL CODE: BOOK I OBLIGATIONS"

  • Period: 1918.
  • Archive ID: 163454 or Vol.59 (https://digital.library.tu.ac.th/tu_dc/frontend/Info/item/dc:163454)
  • Apparently, this version of the Draft with 1394 sections was officially published in 1918. However, it was soon replaced with another, extended version with 1463 sections in 1919. According to the report of Mr. René Guyon “The Work of Codification in Siam” (1919), the version of 1919 with should be the final one for him.
  • The Archive Vol.59 contains the alterations and improvements to the version of 1918 and shows the preparation for the final version of 1919. However, the published copy of the final version is not included in the “Archives of the History of Thai Codification". Fortunately for us again, we could identify one copy of the published Draft of 1919 in the “ห้องสมุด พระยามานวราชเสวี” at the มหาวิทยาลัยกรุงเทพฯ, the authenticity of which could be also proved with the documents in the “Archives of the History of Thai Codification”:
  • Probably thanks to the Thai translation by พระเจ้าบรมวงศ์เธอ กรมหมื่นวิวิธวรรณปรีชา in 1914 (Vol.63), the final Draft of 1919 was translated into Thai in a short time, and the Draft and its translation were repeatedly revised and altered:

(5) Archive Title: "คําแปลประมวลกฎหมายแพ่งและพาณิชย์ เวติมาตรา 1-199"

  • Period: พ.ศ. 2462.
  • Archive ID: 166332 or Vol.67 (https://digital.library.tu.ac.th/tu_dc/frontend/Info/item/dc:166332)
  • It is uncertain who and to what time point created this partial translation of the Draft. Though, this document contains date entries and signatures in several positions; for example, “รับ ๘.๔.๖๒” (67/45), “๓๐ มิถุนายน พ.ศ. ๖๒” (67/53), “พระยามานวราชเสวี ๒๘/๒/๖๒” (67/55) and also a line with the sentence “พระเจ้าบรมวงศ์เธอ กรมหมื่นวิวิธวรรณปรีชา ทรงแปล” (67/84). These circumstances let us assume that it was created soon after the accomplishment of the Draft 1919.
  • It could be even assumed that this document would be just “my 200 sections translation” which พระยามานสราชเสวี indicated with his utterances like “ก็ ไอ้ ๒๐๐ มาตรา ของที่ฉันแปลนั้นแหละ” etc.

⇒ Please, refer to "Translation Dispute (1919 – 1920)" 》

(6) Archive Title: "คำแปลกรรมการประมวลกฎหมายแพ่งและพาณิชย์ บรรพว่าด้วยพันธะธรรม มาตรา 1 ถึง 1128"

  • 1st document:
  • 2nd document:
  • These two archives contain almost identical Thai translation of the Draft. The reason for the redundancy is unknown. In any case, the fist half of the Draft (Secs. 1 – 387) was translated into Thai by พระยามานวราชเสวี (ปลอด ณ สงขลา), and the second haft of the same was translated by พระยาเทพวิถุรพหุลศรุตาบดี (บุญช่วย วณิกกุล).

(7) Archive Title: "ประมวลกฎหมายแพ่งและพาณิชย์ บรรพว่าด้วยพันธะธรรม (มาตรา1 ถุง 387) ต้นฉบับตรวจแก้ครั้งที่ 1"

(8) Archive Title: "ประมวลกฎหมายแพ่งและพาณิชย์ บรรพว่าด้วยพันธะธรรม มาตรา 1 ถุง 387 ต้นฉบับตรวจแก้ครั้งที่ 2"

(9) ประมวลกฎหมายแพ่งและพาณิชย์ บรรพว่าด้วยพันธะธรรม [บรรพ ๑ (1 – 39), บรรพ ๒ (40 ─ 387)

  • Period: กันยายน 2464.
  • Archive ID: 166336 or Vol.71 (https://digital.library.tu.ac.th/tu_dc/frontend/Info/item/dc:166336).
  • In this version, the top part of the Draft, "Preliminary" (Secs. 1 – 39), was separated from the general part of the law on Obligations (Secs. 40 – 387); the first book is called now “บรรพ ๑ บททั่วไป” and the second book “บรรพ ๒ พันธะธรรม”. This quite essential change of the plan was apparently proposed to the Commission of Codification already in August 1920.

⇒ Please, refer to "Division of the Code (1920 – 1922)" 》


Thai Translation of the Draft 1919

Diverse versions of Thai translation

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