COCCEJUS (KOCH), Johannes

(1603–1669)

   Theologian and orientalist. Born in the city of Bremen, Germany, Coccejus was one of the many German immigrants in the Dutch Republic. He studied Hebrew and theology in Hamburg, Franeker, and other cities. At the Academy of Franeker, he was appointed professor of oriental lan guages in 1636 and of theology in 1642. After 1650, he was profes sor of theology at the University of Leiden. Because of his more le nient interpretation of Calvinist doctrine, a controversy arose with his colleague from the University of Utrecht, Gijsbert Voet, a con troversy with political overtones, because the Dutch regents gener ally supported Coccejus. CODIFICATION OFLAW. During the period of the Dutch Republic and the Batavian Republic (1581–1806), laws were enacted by the central government (the States General) or by provincial or local authorities. Many statutes were promulgated in the form of placards and publishedby private jurists or were printed in charter books. The centralizing policy of the Habsburglords, who proclaimed as late as 1570 the large-scale and influential Criminal Ordinances, was then discontinued. Only after the declaration of the constitution of the unitary Batavian Republic (1798) was a commission, under the chair manship of Prof. Henrik Constantijn Cras (1739–1820), established to be in charge of the compiling of national codes of law. After a long period of preparation, some codes were finally introduced under the Kingdom of Holland (partially modeled after the new French codes): a code of private law and a penal code (1809). The code on judicial organization was still not sanctioned. After the annexation of the Kingdom of Holland by the French Empire, Napoleon replaced the codes of 1809 with the five French codes, which were still in ef fect after the restoration of an independent Kingdom of the Nether lands in 1813. King William I ordered a new committee to draft na tional codes, under the chairmanship of Prof. Joan Melchior Kemper (1776–1824). This order caused a deep controversy with the Belgian members of the committee, who favored the maintenance of the French legislation. After the secession of Belgiumin 1830, some new Dutch national codes were promulgated in 1838, but a penal code was brought into effect only in 1886. In 1945, Eduard Maurits Mei jers was charged with a recodification of Dutch civil law. The new code has been in effect in parts since 1970–1992. In 2003, the law of inheritance part was renewed.