The end result of legal scholarship should be doctrines set out in a systematic and accessible manner, regardless of their complexity. The ideal product of the legal theorist’s work should be the publication of a manual that could lie on the desk of every judge, every practising lawyer, where any doctrine, any notion would be defined, described and explained simply enough for quick understanding by a person with a basic legal education.

 

ELEMENTA (beginnings of private law) will be formed according to the following principle:

 

There must be some number of fundamental doctrines of private law. These doctrines should be selected on the basis of relevance to judicial and arbitral practice, should be common to the entire continental family of legal systems or to the majority of them.

 

These doctrines should be indexed, scientifically, extensively and accessibly commented upon, but not in a textbook style, but in a manner suitable for practical argumentation in court.

 

The selection of doctrines should be based on the study of judicial and arbitration practice of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Civil Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Civil Codes of the French Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany as the most historically important and influential modern codifications of private law, the Civil Code of the Russian Federation as the most influential cultural neighbor of our country, the Digesta Justiniana as the theoretical foundation of modern civilistics in its most complete codification, the Institutions of Gaius as a form of classical Roman jurisprudence.

 

These same sources, along with scholarly commentaries on them, academic literature from Kazakhstan, France, Germany, Russia, medieval glosses to the Corpus Iuris Civilis, doctrinal works and judicial precedents from England and the United States, should serve as the basis for the development of ELEMENTA. The doctrines and precedents of Anglo-Saxon legal systems are able to clarify many aspects of Romano-Germanic legal institutions through comparative analysis, indicating which logic led to such different theoretical and practical solutions.

 

The project involves active cooperation with civilists from other countries and work using comparative jurisprudence methods.

 

The scheme of the ELEMENTA statement is proposed to be institutional: persons, things, obligations. A “General Provisions” section may be added.

 

Shaykenov Arman, a lawyer with extensive practical experience, experience in teaching civil law and a specialist in Roman law, was assigned to lead the project.