Civil Code of Argentina
The Civil Code of Argentina was the legal code in force between 1871 and 2015, which formed the foundation of the system of civil law in Argentina. It was written by Dalmacio Vélez Sársfield, as the culmination of a series of attempts to codify civil law in Argentina; the original code was approved on September 25, 1869, by the passage of Law 340, became active on January 1, 1871. With numerous subsequent modifications, it continued to be the foundation of Argentine civil law for more than a century. On 1 August 2015, the Civil Code of Argentina was replaced by a new Civil and Commercial Code - Código Civil y Comercial de la Nación. Vélez Sársfield's code reflects the influence of the continental law and liberal principles of the 17th century, it was influenced by the great Napoleonic code, the Spanish laws in effect at that time in Argentina, Roman law, canon law, the draft of the Brazilian civil code by Freitas, the influence of the Chilean Civil Code. Approval of the Argentine civil code was necessary for political reasons.
It gave a new unity to civil law. The civil code's authority over provincial law improved the inconsistent existing legislation throughout the country at the time; this unity and coherence would bring two important benefits: it would facilitate both the people's knowledge about the law, as well as its application by judges, the legislation would strengthen the political independence of the country, through legislative independence and national unity. In spite of the stability brought by the civil code to the Argentine law system, it was subject to various modifications throughout its history, as was necessary to adequately regulate a society undergoing significant social and economical changes; the most important reform was Law 17.711 of April 22, 1968. Not only did the law change around 5% of the complete article, it is important due to the change in orientation regarding some regulated institutions. There were other reform projects that were not implemented. Along with proposals to change institutions and methods, one of them proposed to merge the civil code with the commercial code, following the example of the Italian code.
After decades of deliberations, a new Código Civil y Comercial de la Nación was approved in 2014, entered into force in 2015, replacing the old code. The codification in Argentina was part of a process being undertaken around the world, due to the advantages that such a systematic approach granted. Indeed, there had been earlier codifications. Stemming from these, there were separate attempts at civil codification in the Argentine republic during the first half of the 19th century, but it was achieved in 1869; the unification of the country and its political growth and strengthening demanded the codification of the civil laws, since it was not possible to continue under the uncertainty caused by the inadequate code that existed under the rule of the Spanish. Before the Civil Code, there had been several attempts without success. In 1824, Juan Gregorio de las Heras issued a decree appointing one commission charged with compiling the Commercial Code and another charged with compiling the Military Code, but neither of these two projects' efforts came to fruition.
In 1831, the Legislature of Buenos Aires adopted the Spanish Commercial Code compiled in 1829 and created a commission to see to any reforms to it that might be necessary. In 1852, Justo José de Urquiza created a commission of 14 members for the compilation of the Civil, Penal and Procedural Codes. However, the revolution of September 11 of that year, which resulted in the secession of the Province of Buenos Aires from the Argentine Confederacy, prevented this project from making any concrete progress; the Argentine Constitution of 1853, in clause 11 of article 67, authorized the Argentine National Congress to draw up the Civil, Commercial and Mining Codes. With the intent of fulfilling this constitutional mandate, Facundo Zuviría brought before the Senate a law that would empower the Executive Branch to appoint a commission to complete those tasks; the law was passed and signed by Urquiza. In the State of Buenos Aires, an initiative to launch a Civil Code suffered the same fate. On October 17, 1857, a law was passed that authorized the Executive Branch to spend the necessary funds to compile the Civil and Procedural Codes, but the initiative was frustrated.
However, the Commercial Code had better luck. The task of compiling that code had been given to Dalmacio Vélez Sársfield and Eduardo Acevedo Maturana, who sent it to the legislature for its approval; the Commercial Code of the State of Buenos Aires was passed in 1859, it was this code, adopted at the national level in 1862 and amended in 1889. Until the sanction of the Code, the Argentine legislation was based on the Spanish legislation previous to the May Revolution, on the one called Legislación Patria; the Spanish legislation in use in the country was the New Compilation of 1567, since the Newest Compilation of 1805 did not have application before the revolution. The New Compilation contained laws coming from the Fuero Real, the Ordenamiento de Alcalá, the Reordering of Montalvo and the Laws of Toro. In order of importance: 1st New Compilation, 2nd Fuero Real, 3rd Fuero Juzgo, 4th Fuero viejo de Castilla, 5th the Partidas. N
Justo José de Urquiza
Justo José de Urquiza y García was an Argentine general and politician. He was president of the Argentine Confederation from 1854 to 1860. Justo José de Urquiza y García was born in Entre Ríos, the son of José Narciso de Urquiza Álzaga, born in Castro Urdiales and María Cándida García González, a Creole of Buenos Aires, he was governor of Entre Ríos during the government of Juan Manuel de Rosas, governor of Buenos Aires with powers delegated from the other provinces. Rosas presented a resignation to his charge but only as a political gesture, counting that the other governments would reject it. However, in 1851, resentful of the economic and political dominance of Buenos Aires, Urquiza accepted Rosas' resignation and resumed for Entre Rios the powers delegated in Buenos Aires. Along with the resuming of international commerce without passing through the port of Buenos Aires, Urquiza replaced the "Death to the savage unitarians!" Slogan with "Death to the enemies of national organization!", requesting the making of a national constitution that Rosas had long rejected.
Corrientes supported Urquiza's action, but Rosas and the other provinces condemned the "crazy, savage, unitarian" Urquiza. Supported by Brazil and the Uruguayan liberals, he created the "Big Army" and forced Manuel Oribe to capitulate, ending the long siege of Montevideo in October 1851, defeating Rosas on 3 February 1852 at the Battle of Caseros; the other provinces that supported Rosas against Urquiza's pronunciation changed sides and supported his project of creating a National Constitution. Urquiza began the task of national organization, he became provisional director of the Argentine Confederation in May 1852. In 1853, a constituent assembly adopted a constitution based on the ideas of Juan Bautista Alberdi, Urquiza was inaugurated president in March 1854. During his administration, foreign relations were improved, public education was encouraged, colonization was promoted, plans for railroad construction was initiated, his work of national organization was, hindered by the opposition of Buenos Aires, which seceded from the Confederation.
Open war broke out in 1859. Urquiza defeated the provincial army led by Bartolomé Mitre in October 1859, at the Battle of Cepeda, Buenos Aires agreed to re-enter the Confederation. Constitutional amendments proposed by Buenos Aires were adopted in 1860 but the settlement was short-lived, further difficulties culminated in civil war. Urquiza met the army of Buenos Aires, again led by Mitre, in September 1861; the battle was indecisive. He retired to San José Palace, his residence in Entre Ríos, where he ruled until he was assassinated at age 69 by followers of dissident and political rival Ricardo López Jordán. Like many other nineteenth century Argentine patriots, Urquiza was a freemason, his imposing Palacio San José has been interpreted as containing many masonic symbols, created "to symbolize and reflect the construction of his other work: the Argentine State". There are many streets and squares all over Argentina that are named after Justo José de Urquiza, such as the Urquiza park in Rosario or the Urquiza park in Parana city.
There is a central street in Rosario called Urquiza, there is a commuter railway line in Buenos Aires named after him, the Urquiza Line
Roque Sáenz Peña
Roque Sáenz Peña Lahitte was the sixteenth President of Argentina, serving from October 12, 1910 to his death in office on August 9, 1914. He was the son of former President Luis Sáenz Peña, he was responsible for passing Law 8871, known as "Sáenz Peña Law", which reformed the Argentine electoral system, making the vote secret and compulsory for males over 18. This ended the rule by electoral fraud of the conservative Argentine oligarchy, paved the way for the rise of the Radical Civic Union in the first free elections of the country. President Roque Sáenz Peña Avenue in Buenos Aires is named after him, he served in the War of the Pacific as a lieutenant colonel of the Peruvian Army, was made prisoner by Chile for six months following the Battle of Arica. He served as Ambassador to Spain and Italy. Roque Sáenz Peña was born on March 1851 in Buenos Aires to an aristocratic family, his father was Luis Sáenz Peña, the president of Argentina between 1892 and 1895. Sáenz Peña inherited the opponents of his father, forced to resign, traveled throughout Europe before he entered politics.
He studied law during the unsuccessful 1874 revolution started by the Liberal party lead by Bartolomé Mitre, in which Sáenz Peña did not participate. After earning his law degree in 1875 and joining the National Autonomist Party, he joined the militia and was under the orders of General Luis María Campos until 1877. In 1876 he was elected to the Buenos Aires Legislature as a member of the Autonomist Party; the War of the Pacific pitted Chile against Peru. Argentina secretly joined the alliance; the dispute was over territory on the Pacific coast that had never been resolved control of a part of the Atacama Desert. The area contained high amounts of sodium nitrate, a valuable mineral resource. During the war, Sáenz Peña left Argentina to fight with the Peruvians, his main motivation was not patriotic or to show solidarity, but rather to escape Buenos Aires due to an unrequited love affair. After his superior officers had been killed in the Battle of Arica he assumed their roles and commanded a weak Peruvian division.
Sáenz Peña was captured after the Peruvian’s defeat at the battled and imprisoned by the Chileans. When Sáenz Peña returned to Buenos Aires he was appointed sub-secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Relations under Minister of Foreign Relations Bernardo de Irigoyen in 1880, he soon left politics only to return in 1887. He represented Argentina at the 1888 Montevideo Congress. Sáenz Peña held firm to his legal and political doctrines and definitively stated that Argentine was immune to any action taken by the assembly. Along with Manuel Quintana, Sáenz Peña represented Argentina in the first Pan American Conference in 1889; the two delegates made a 40-day journey to New York and a four-day trip to Washington for the meeting, taking placed in the State Department building. The Argentine delegation boycotted the opening meeting over, as they saw it, a violation of diplomatic custom. Custom requires a delegate from an invited country to preside over the conference, but the U. S. Secretary of State was elected to be the permanent chair of the conference.
The delegates attended the second session. Throughout the conference Sáenz Peña advocated against an American free trade area; the United States and twelve nations voted for a “recommendation to work for inter-American reciprocity treaties.” Only Argentina and Bolivia voted against it. During Sáenz Peña’s tenure as foreign minister he traveled the world and argued for policies that benefited Argentina, he performed traditional ceremonial duties, like in 1906 when he attended the wedding of Spanish king Alfonso XIII. He worked with the Italian government to increase trade while providing them with official cables from Argentina telling of the economic developments within the country, he distributed these cables to businessmen as well. Before his presidency, Sáenz Peña made Europeans aware of Argentina's significance internationally. On October 1, 1910, Roque Sáenz Peña assumed the presidency of Argentina. In his first inaugural address he declared: “My international policy if known to you, it will be friendship for Europe and fraternity for America.”
He came into power like his father. Sáenz Peña was elected while tensions were high in 1910 while promising electoral reform to curb the power of the oligarchy and to prevent a revolution. Electoral reform was debated in Congress in 1911 and implemented in 1912 as La ley 8.871, now known as the Sáenz Peña Law. The president said, "I have told my country my thought, my convictions, my hopes. Let my country listen to the words and advice of its head of state, may it vote." The law established compulsory and universal male suffrage for those who are over eighteen years of age. There was no discussion of; the law required voting in order to increase civic engagement, in order to stop corruption the Army was deployed during elections. One third of the vote turned out before the passage of the legislation compared to 70 to 80 percent of it afterwards. Political corruption was curbed; the core purpose of the law was to create a new large conservative voting bloc and force oligarchs to adapt to changing times.
After the law was implemented, the newly formed opposition to the oligarchs won positions after the elections of 1912 and 1914, but Hipolito Yrigoyen’s and his Radical Party’s presidential victory in 1916 was the greatest blow to the
Nicolás Avellaneda
Nicolás Remigio Aurelio Avellaneda Silva was an Argentine politician and journalist, president of Argentina from 1874 to 1880. Avellaneda's main projects while in office were banking and education reform, leading to Argentina's economic growth; the most important events of his government were the Conquest of the Desert and the transformation of the City of Buenos Aires into a federal district. Born in San Miguel de Tucumán, his mother moved with him to Bolivia after the death of his father, Marco Avellaneda, during a revolt against Juan Manuel de Rosas, he studied law without graduating. Back at Tucumán he founded El Eco del Norte, moved to Buenos Aires in 1857, becoming director of the El Nacional and editor of El Comercio de la Plata, he finished his studies at Buenos Aires. Sarmiento helped him to become teacher of economy at the University of Buenos Aires, he wrote "Estudio sobre las leyes de tierras públicas", proposing to give the lands to producers that make production from them. This system, similar to the one employed at the United States, suggested to reduce bureaucracy and pointed that this would allow stable populations and population growth.
He was a member of the house of representatives in 1859 and Minister of Government of Adolfo Alsina in the Buenos Aires province in 1866. During Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's presidency, he was Minister of Education, he implemented the educational reform, defining of his government. Avellaneda attained the presidency in 1874 but had its legitimacy contested by Bartolomé Mitre and supported by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. Mitre was defeated by Julio Argentino Roca. Mitre was held prisoner and judged by military justice, but Avellaneda indulted him in order to promote pacification, he included Rufino de Elizalde and José María Gutiérrez, supporters of Mitre, as members of his cabinet. In line with people like Alberdi or Sarmiento, who thought that European immigration was crucial to the Argentine development, he promoted the "Avellaneda law" that allowed European farmers ease to get terrains; the immigration numbers were doubled in a few years. Having won the revolution and bringing peace to the country, Avellaneda faced the serious economic crisis, centering his efforts on the control of the land with the Conquest of the Desert and expanding the railroads, the cereal and meat exports, the European immigration, specially to Patagonia.
During his presidency, the economy of Argentina was affected by the European crisis putting the country on the edge of debt default. Deciding to take Argentina from its debts, he said that "there are two million Argentines who would economize to their hunger and thirst to fulfill the promises of our public commitments in the foreign markets", he applied a weak protectionism. The crisis was fixed with the growing exports of refrigerated meat to Europe, a new developing industrial method of the time. A prolific writer, his works have been published in 12 volumes. Aged 37, he was the youngest Argentine president elected, he had served in the Argentine Senate for five months in 1874 and returned to the Senate in 1883 until his death. He died on a ship returning from medical treatment in France. Mendelevich, Pablo. El Final. Buenos Aires: Ediciones B. ISBN 978-987-627-166-0. Nicolás Avellaneda at Find a Grave
Pelagio Luna
Pelagio Baltasar Luna was an Argentine politician of the Radical Civic Union. He reached the post of Vice President in 1916. Born in La Rioja, where his father was founder of the Radical Civic Union, Luna graduated from the University of Buenos Aires at the age of 22, he returned to La Rioja and worked as a lawyer entered the judicial system, serving as a judge. He taught literature at the National School of La Rioja. Luna took part in the armed revolution the following year, he was part of the National Convention of November 1892. He was a candidate for National Deputy in 1912 and for governor of La Rioja in 1913, without success. In 1916 Luna was elected vice president on Hipólito Yrigoyen's ticket, as the first elected vice president under the Sáenz Peña Law, serving until his death in 1919; as President of the Senate, he helped create the National Library of Argentina, serving as its first president. Luna, Félix. El antipersonalismo. Anales. Academia Nacional de Ciencias Morales y políticas.. Luna, Félix.
Yrigoyen. Buenos Aires: Desarrollo
Bartolomé Mitre
Bartolomé Mitre Martínez was an Argentine statesman, military figure, author. He was the President of Argentina from 1862 to 1868. Mitre was born in Buenos Aires to a Greek family named Mitropoulos; as a liberal, he was an opponent of Juan Manuel de Rosas, he was forced into exile. He worked as a soldier and journalist in Uruguay as a supporter of General Fructuoso Rivera, who named Mitre Lieutenant Colonel of the Uruguayan Army in 1846. Mitre lived in Bolivia and Chile, in the latter country, he collaborated with legal scholar and fellow Argentine exile Juan Bautista Alberdi in the latter's periodical, El Comercio of Valparaíso. Mitre returned to Argentina after the defeat of Rosas at the 1852 Battle of Caseros, he was a leader of the revolt of Buenos Aires Province against Justo José de Urquiza's federal system in the Revolution of 11 September 1852, was appointed to important posts in the provincial government after the Province seceded from the Confederation. The civil war of 1859, after the revolt of Buenos Aires against Justo José de Urquiza's federal system, resulted in Mitre's defeat by Urquiza at the Battle of Cepeda, in 1860.
Issues of customs revenue sharing were settled, Buenos Aires reentered the Argentine Confederation. Victorious at the 1861 Battle of Pavón, Mitre obtained important concessions from the national army, notably the amendment of the Constitution to provide for indirect elections through an electoral college. In October 1862, Mitre was elected president of the republic, national political unity was achieved. During the Paraguayan War, Mitre was named the head of the allied forces. Mitre was the founder of La Nación, one of South America's leading newspapers, in 1870, his opposition to Autonomist Party nominee Adolfo Alsina, whom he viewed as a veiled Buenos Aires separatist, led Mitre to run for the presidency again, though the seasoned Alsina outmaneuvered him by fielding Nicolás Avellaneda, a moderate lawyer from remote Tucuman Province where the independence of Argentina had been declared in 1816. The electoral college met on 12 April 1874, awarded Mitre only three provinces, including Buenos Aires.
Mitre took up arms again. Hoping to prevent Avellaneda's 12 October inaugural, he mutineered a gunboat. Following the 1890 Revolution of the Park, he broke with the conservative National Autonomist Party and co-founded the Civic Union with reformist Leandro Alem. Mitre's desire to maintain an understanding with the ruling PAN led to the Civic Union's schism in 1891, upon which Mitre founded the National Civic Union, Alem, the Radical Civic Union, he dedicated much of his time in years to writing. According to some of his critics, as a historian Mitre took several questionable actions ignoring key documents and events on purpose in his writings; this caused his student Adolfo Saldías to distance himself from him, for future revisionist historians such as José María Rosa to question the validity of his work altogether. He wrote poetry and fiction, translated Dante's La divina commedia into Spanish, he was an active freemason, the grandfather of poet, Margarita Abella Caprile. On his death in 1906, he was interred in La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires.
19 January 2006 marked the centenary of Mitre's death. Mitre ranks as an important South-American historiographer, he wrote the best accounts of South America's wars of independence and published many works, amongst which are: Historia de Belgrano y de la independencia argentina Historia de San Martín y de la emancipación sudamericana Rimas Ulrich Schmidl, primer historiador del Rio de la Plata There is an abridged translation of the Historia de San Martín, entitled The Emancipation of South America by W. Pilling. Mitre's speeches were collected as Arengas. J. J. Biedma, El Teniente General Bartolomé Mitre, in Bartolomé Mitre, volume iii. William H. Katra, The Argentine Generation of 1837: Echeverría, Sarmiento, Mitre. Works by Bartolomé Mitre at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Bartolomé Mitre at Internet Archive Works by Bartolomé Mitre at LibriVox
Argentina
Argentina the Argentine Republic, is a country located in the southern half of South America. Sharing the bulk of the Southern Cone with Chile to the west, the country is bordered by Bolivia and Paraguay to the north, Brazil to the northeast and the South Atlantic Ocean to the east, the Drake Passage to the south. With a mainland area of 2,780,400 km2, Argentina is the eighth-largest country in the world, the fourth largest in the Americas, the largest Spanish-speaking nation; the sovereign state is subdivided into twenty-three provinces and one autonomous city, Buenos Aires, the federal capital of the nation as decided by Congress. The provinces and the capital exist under a federal system. Argentina claims sovereignty over part of Antarctica, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; the earliest recorded human presence in modern-day Argentina dates back to the Paleolithic period. The Inca Empire expanded to the northwest of the country in Pre-Columbian times; the country has its roots in Spanish colonization of the region during the 16th century.
Argentina rose as the successor state of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, a Spanish overseas viceroyalty founded in 1776. The declaration and fight for independence was followed by an extended civil war that lasted until 1861, culminating in the country's reorganization as a federation of provinces with Buenos Aires as its capital city; the country thereafter enjoyed relative peace and stability, with several waves of European immigration radically reshaping its cultural and demographic outlook. The almost-unparalleled increase in prosperity led to Argentina becoming the seventh wealthiest nation in the world by the early 20th century. Following the Great Depression in the 1930s, Argentina descended into political instability and economic decline that pushed it back into underdevelopment, though it remained among the fifteen richest countries for several decades. Following the death of President Juan Perón in 1974, his widow, Isabel Martínez de Perón, ascended to the presidency, she was overthrown in 1976 by a U.
S.-backed coup which installed a right-wing military dictatorship. The military government persecuted and murdered numerous political critics and leftists in the Dirty War, a period of state terrorism that lasted until the election of Raúl Alfonsín as President in 1983. Several of the junta's leaders were convicted of their crimes and sentenced to imprisonment. Argentina is a prominent regional power in the Southern Cone and Latin America, retains its historic status as a middle power in international affairs. Argentina has the second largest economy in South America, the third-largest in Latin America, membership in the G-15 and G-20 major economies, it is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, World Trade Organization, Union of South American Nations, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and the Organization of Ibero-American States. Despite its history of economic instability, it ranks second highest in the Human Development Index in Latin America; the description of the country by the word Argentina has been found on a Venetian map in 1536.
In English the name "Argentina" comes from the Spanish language, however the naming itself is not Spanish, but Italian. Argentina means in Italian " of silver, silver coloured" borrowed from the Old French adjective argentine " of silver" > "silver coloured" mentioned in the 12th century. The French word argentine is the feminine form of argentin and derives from argent "silver" with the suffix -in; the Italian naming "Argentina" for the country implies Terra Argentina "land of silver" or Costa Argentina "coast of silver". In Italian, the adjective or the proper noun is used in an autonomous way as a substantive and replaces it and it is said l'Argentina; the name Argentina was first given by the Venetian and Genoese navigators, such as Giovanni Caboto. In Spanish and Portuguese, the words for "silver" are plata and prata and " of silver" is said plateado and prateado. Argentina was first associated with the silver mountains legend, widespread among the first European explorers of the La Plata Basin.
The first written use of the name in Spanish can be traced to La Argentina, a 1602 poem by Martín del Barco Centenera describing the region. Although "Argentina" was in common usage by the 18th century, the country was formally named "Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata" by the Spanish Empire, "United Provinces of the Río de la Plata" after independence; the 1826 constitution included the first use of the name "Argentine Republic" in legal documents. The name "Argentine Confederation" was commonly used and was formalized in the Argentine Constitution of 1853. In 1860 a presidential decree settled the country's name as "Argentine Republic", that year's constitutional amendment ruled all the names since 1810 as valid. In the English language the country was traditionally called "the Argentine", mimicking the typical Spanish usage la Argentina and resulting from a mistaken shortening of the fuller name'Argentine Republic'.'The Argentine' fell out of fashion during the mid-to-late 20th century, now the country is referred to as "Argentina".
In the Spanish language "Argentina" is feminine, taking the feminine article "La" as the i
