The end of the nineteenth century witnessed important reforms of the civil legal system in the Habsburg Monarchy, including the passing of the Austrian Code of
Civil Procedure (ZPO) in 1895. However, the use of justice remained regionally diverse even a decade after introducing the procedural code; it was particularly intense in the Eastern crownlands Galicia and Bukovina. Taking this differentiated use of justice as a starting point, the workshop asked about modern European litigation practices. It inquired into the effects of the political, geographic, and economic context on civil proceedings and whether this institution replaced or completed customary and informal legal remedies. Most of the presentations addressed themes from regions and countries of the Habsburg Monarchy and its successor states, while other papers developed case studies on post-Ottoman Greece and the Russian Empire.

The topics reflected the richness of cases pertaining to civil law. VASO SERINIDOU (Athens) analyzed how lawsuits in the aftermath of the Greek war of secession from the Ottoman Empire (1821–27) contributed to the imposition of social balance in the newly independent national state. She discussed the results of an analysis of 1500 petitions in civil and criminal procedural matters to the provisional authorities, which showed how the state sought to replace pre-revolutionary legal pluralism by a uniform legal system. The judicial and police records of the period reflect a strong demand for justice services “from below”, and the readiness of the inhabitants to resort to legal means to settle private disputes. This juridification of disputes coincided with the establishment of civil courts and the imposition of more rigid rules in legal proceedings, but also showed the difficulties of the state to overrule pre-existing legal traditions, which forced the authorities to rely on cooperation with social actors.

SVIT KOMEL (Ljubljana) analyzed the reform and new administration of property rights in the Habsburg Crownland Carniola after the Revolution of 1848 and their acceptance by local peasants. It focused on the redemption and regulation of easements (Servituten) between 1853 and 1914, whose regulation coincided with the reform of land property relations after the abolition of serfdom, and the related land relief (Grundentlastung). The crux of the regulation consisted in the “translation” of the feudal bundle of rights in land into exclusive private property rights. The paper showed the active involvement of peasants in the process and their conflict with the authorities in defending the property rights they claimed to have possessed “since time immemorial.”

WALTER FUCHS (Berlin) examined the use of justice based on a statistical analysis of civil and criminal cases. The paper elaborated on the hypothesis of the common social roots of litigation and crime in the late Habsburg Monarchy (1900-1903). Based on an analysis of judicial and census data around 1900, the paper asked about consistent variations in civil litigation and crime rates in the Cisleithanian regional court districts and searched for socio-structural parameters (such as the degree of industrialization or the proportion of day laborers) that can explain a stronger or weaker use of both civil and criminal justice. In his interpretation, Fuchs departed from the well-known interpretation of practices of criminal justice in terms of “anomie” or “illegalism,” and regarded instead as a “strategic use of justice” both by the judiciary and by social actors.

SERHIY NEZHURBIDA (Frankfurt am Main) talked about the multicultural background of Eugen Ehrlich and how his personal life and social background formed a basis for his concept of the living law and the analysis of legal pluralism in Habsburg Bukovina.

MIRJANA MIŠKIĆ (Banja Luka) discussed the judicial decisions of the Court of Appeal in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the decade preceding World War I. The judicial practice in Bosnia and Herzegovina under Habsburg rule was determined by legal plurality and the co-existence of state laws, Sharia laws, and Ottoman laws. The paper analyzed a sample of first- and second-instance verdicts in criminal law and asked about their regional social historical significance under Habsburg imperial rule. It highlighted the prevalence of cases of lesser monetary value, including the theft of agricultural products, insults to honor and fasting, and domestic violence.

NINJA BUMANN (Vienna) discussed the transformation of the Ottoman legal system following the 1878 occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The newly installed Habsburg administration incorporated the Ottoman legal regime on the ground, at the same time the ensuing legal reforms resulted in a fusion of Ottoman legal norms with Austrian law. Focusing on the legal administration of marriage, the paper pointed out the proceduralization of Sharia courts, which had previously favored arbitration to adjudication. At the same time, the penal power of the quadis (Sharia judges) diminished, which led to an ambiguity of their authority.

The paper by ISABELLE AVAKUMOVIC-POINTON (British Columbia, CA), applied a Critical Disability Studies (CDS) lens to the case of an industrial worker to gain insights into the social phenomenon of sick, injured, and disabled workers seeking justice in Habsburg-occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina. The case study explored the ways in which disabled, injured, and ill workers conceived of their rights, selected legal remedies and instruments, and accessed justice in the context of industrialization. The author highlighted the ways disability as a topic of litigation could help exploring the ways in which disenfranchised imperial subjects used the legal system for their own purposes.

The keynote lecture by ZOLTÁN FLECK (Budapest) drew on his empirical research in Hungary in the 1990s to address the discrepancies between formal legal culture and the informal social management of conflicts. One such research was the sociological analysis of the legal consciousness of the post-socialist judiciary, which showed the continuation of practices of political subordination that undermined the formally established rule of law reforms. Another case study based on narrative life-course interviews with lay persons showed that many of them experiencing grievances had not reach out for legal redress at all. The lecture engaged with the socially embedded concepts of culture, change, and power to analyze the gap between social expectations of justice and the formal legal procedure to redress injustice. Fleck emphasized the crucial role of the state in creating the financial, psychological, and educational resources for enabling marginalized groups’ access to justice.

KATERYNA PASICHNYK (Halle) asked how practices of Jewish healing in the lands of Podolia in the Russian Empire were preserved throughout the long nineteenth century. Jewish healers were the most widespread providers of medical services in their native communities and even beyond. The discrepancy between the formal restrictions on the activity of the healers and the much wider scope of their practice made this group vulnerable to denouncements and accusations concerning medical malpractice. The social, medical and legal changes, including the new possibility to litigate medical malpractice since the 1860s, did not offer a remedy. The paper registered the growing number of legal cases against the healers where patients and medical experts figured as plaintiffs and Jewish healers as defendants.

KATJA WEZEL (Göttingen) discussed the Riga Trade Court (Wettgericht), a commercial court, frequented by Baltic German merchants but also by foreign merchants and the city’s ethnic minorities. Russian and Jewish merchants entrusted the trade court with trading disputes even though it was run by Baltic German patricians. A trade conflict about timber transports and deliveries between one of Riga’s Jewish honorary citizens and several long-established trading houses offered insights into the mode of operation of the Riga Trade Court during the late 1850s and the 1860s. The court files showcased business practices and techniques during the economic restrictions during the Crimean War. The paper argued that these circumstances affected the perceptions of right and wrong conduct in trade and the ways merchants, traders and intermediaries dealt with trade conflicts.

MÁTYÁS ERDÉLYI (Vienna) presented a case study about the litigation connected to the bill of exchange, called protest, in the late Habsburg Monarchy (1900-1912). The bill of exchange served as an instrument of personal credit and transfer of money. Protests most often represented a defaulted debt, therefore their number was sensitive to economic and financial cycles. They also correlated with other types of legal cases, like the small claims proceedings and foreclosures. The regional distribution of protests and their change over time, however, challenged strictly economic explanations. The protest rate was the highest in Bukovina and Eastern Galicia, but regional courts in the economically less advanced Dalmatia, not to mention the Austrian crownlands, administered relatively small numbers of protests that underscored the hypothesis about regional cultural and social causes of litigation.

RÓBERT BALOGH (Budapest) analyzed how peasants and landlords negotiated the use of formerly common pastures after 1848 in the aftermath of the abolition of serfdom in Transylvania. The introduction of a Forest Law and forestry administration in 1879 created a situation that generated conflicts and complaints, and involved arguments pertaining to different legal traditions, the sustainability of agricultural production, social fairness, and financial profitability. Legal arguments connected to the specific rights associated with the different types of land categories (commons, pastures, forests), some were based on the belief that the common management of land was unsustainable and unjust, while others aimed to maximize monetary income.

Ever since its creation, the Austrian Code of Civil Procedure (ZPO 1 August 1895) has been known as a model for social civil proceeding, which changed civil litigation to the benefit of the weaker party. BORBÁLA ZSUZSANNA TÖRÖK (Vienna) revisited the making of the law by drawing attention to the other, related parts of the legal reform as well, including the code for the organization of the civil courts and the code of enforcement, which regulated among others credit and debt relations in property transition in business and trade. While legal historical research has emphasized so far the new legal quality and economy of the trial, the paper discussed the less well-researched economic and administrative dimensions of the reform. Foreclosure became also a faster and sharper legal instrument, whose broad social effect raised new questions about the role of an increasingly interventionist state in civil litigation.

The conference showcased the multiple ways in which civil litigation intermingled with social, economic, and cultural problems locally and at a broader scale. Civil procedural laws and legal reforms proved to be crucial in bring about change and/or modern practices in the most different fields, including agriculture and property relations, public health, trade, financial business, labor relations or social policies. The conference presentations also pointed to the historical heterogeneity of civil litigation cases that can hardly be analyzed in one (universal) conceptual framework. However, a considerable number of contributions showed how civil litigation could become a space for negotiating claims of justice, but also of power relations, whether among litigants or from above.

Conference Overview:

Section I:

Vaso Serinidou (Athens): “The War of Lawsuits”: Interpersonal Conflicts, Litigation and State Formation in Revolutionary Greece, 1821-1827

Svit Komel (Ljubljana): Administration of Property Rights and Peasant Resistance: the Redemption and Regulation of "Easements” (1853-1914)

Section II:

Walter Fuchs (Berlin): Between Anomie and Strategic Use of Justice – Common Roots of Crime and Litigation in the Habsburg Monarchy

Sergei Nezhurbida (Frankfurt am Main): Eugen Ehrlich as a Multicultural Bukovinian

Mirjana Miškić, (Banja Luka): Judicial Decisions of the Court of Appeal in Banja Luka during the Austro-Hungarian Rule (1907-1914)

Section III:

Ninja Bumann (Vienna): Reforming Islamic Legal Practices: Proceduralization and Law Enforcement in Habsburg Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1878-1918

Isabelle Avakumovic-Pointon (British Columbia, CA): Josef Prkna Goes to Court: Sick, Injured, and Disabled Workers Seeking Civil Justice in Habsburg-Occupied Bosnia

Keynote Lecture

Zoltán Fleck (Budapest): Justice and Injustices in Times of Crises

Section IV:

Kateryna Pasichnyk (Halle): Jewish Healers in Lawsuits in the Provincial Courts of Imperial Podolia during the long 19th century

Katja Wezel (Göttingen): The Riga Trade Court and Conflicts between Riga’s Merchants and Traders in Times of Change (1850s)

Mátyás Erdélyi (Vienna): Credit, Financial Distress and Litigation in the Late Habsburg Monarchy

Section V:

Róbert Balogh (Budapest): The Interaction between the Legal Tradition of Common Pastures and New Incentives for Profit: Cases from two Districts of Transylvania, 1853-1880

Borbála Zsuzsanna Török (Vienna): “A Battle for Property by Legal Means”: Procedural Reform and Social Politics in the Habsburg Monarchy