You know that I like to look at international legal trends that may be hard to notice. Legal concepts are not designed to remain unchanged forever, but they cannot change too quickly. Ambitious political changes may result in unconstitutional and unconventional solutions that may please clients but frustrate practitioners.1 Legal concepts do not like to be brutalised; some of them prefer to swing.2 The end of 2021 looks more and more similar to its beginning. The only thing that has fortunately not changed is this strange feeling that I have in front of a webcam while I am supposed to be sitting in front of a human being. I hope that I will not get used to it because it would mean that a major change would have taken place. Distant communication and data processing have undoubtedly progressed during this pandemic. I never used Zoom before it. Furthermore, I am certain that artificial intelligence could really help dealing with formalities3. It is disruptive4 and reminds the practitioner that he should not focus mainly on formalities. The context in which a will is drafted is also important.5 One may even say that, in the European Union at least, formalities are not as important as the cultural background of the estate since it has been seen that, as far as formalities were concerned, the EUCJ was rather lenient provided that the background of the estate was clear, that the estate plan was coherent6, and that the testator understood his will.7 There may be more to this trend than the appeal of market integration because the importance of culture is clear also from a domestic perspective. I have indeed seen what I affectionately call "my Code" changing and I am convinced that there is more to a civil code than statutory codification. A civil code states what a civilisation is.8 It states what may be. This brings us back to basic distinctions such as the one between movables and immovables.9 These are distinctions that underpin conflict rules and the distinction between movables and immovables is where we started our journey from10. We do not know where it will lead us to. Nevertheless, the fact that everything looks frozen does not mean that nothing moves. This year has been both hectic and daunting. We can still discover great things as long as we have enough enthusiasm to get merry in uncertain times. As I am writing this post for you, I understand why God rest you Merry Gentlemen is my favourite Christmas carol.
Please do me a favour these year: try to be merry even if you do not feel like it.
I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful New Year.
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See Dates and names. See also posts tagged EU Succession Regulation 650/2012, especially Successions beyond formalities. ↩