Editing Napoleonic Code (section)

==French codes in the 21st century==
The French codes, now more than 60 in number,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/initRechCodeArticle.do|title=Recherche simple dans les codes en vigueur - Legifrance|work=legifrance.gouv.fr}}</ref> are frequently amended, as well as [[Judicial review|judicially re-interpreted]]. Therefore, for over a century all of the codes in force have been documented in the annually revised editions published by [[Dalloz]] (Paris).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://boutique.dalloz.fr|title=Code civil, Code du travail, tous les livres de droit des Editions Dalloz|work=dalloz.fr}}</ref> These editions consist of thorough [[annotation]]s, with references to other codes, relevant [[statute]]s, judicial decisions (even if unpublished), and international instruments. The "small (''petit'')" version of the Civil Code in this form is nearly 3,000 pages, available in print and online. Additional material, including scholarly articles, is added in the larger "expert (''expert'')" version and the still larger "mega (''méga'')" version, both of which are available in print and on searchable [[CD-ROM]]. By this stage, it has been suggested, the Civil Code has become "less a book than a database".<ref>{{cite journal| author = Iain Stewart | title = ''Mors Codicis'': End of the Age of Codification?  | journal = Tulane European & Civil Law Forum | volume = 27 | pages = 17 at 24–25 | year = 2012 }}</ref>

The sheer number of codes, together with digitisation, led the ''Commission supérieure de codification'' to reflect in its annual report for 2011:

<blockquote>The Commission observes that the age of drawing up new codes is probably reaching its end. The aim of a nearly complete codification of the law is no longer pursued, for three reasons: firstly, the technical developments by which texts are provided in non-physical form offer to users modes of access that are comparable in many ways to those available through a code; secondly, the creation of new codes encounters a kind of law of diminishing returns in that, the more progress that is made in the development of new codes, the trickier it becomes to determine in which code particular provisions should be located; and, finally, it is clear that certain kinds of provision [...] are unsuitable for codification, since codification makes sense only when it involves provisions that possess sufficient generality.<ref>[http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/Droit-francais/Codification/Rapports-annuels-de-la-CSC Commission supérieure de codification, ''Vingt et unième rapport annuel 2010''] (Paris, 2011), 13;  quoted and translated, {{cite journal| author = Iain Stewart | title = ''Mors Codicis'': End of the Age of Codification?  | journal = Tulane European & Civil Law Forum | volume = 27 | pages = 17 at 25 | year = 2012 }}</ref></blockquote>

A year later, the Commission recommended that, after its current codification projects were completed, there should not be any further codes; an additional reason was government delay in publishing reforms that the Commission had completed.<ref>[http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/Droit-francais/Codification/Rapports-annuels-de-la-CSC Commission supérieure de codification, ''Vingt-deuxième rapport annuel 2011''] (Paris, 2012), 21.</ref> The government responded encouragingly in March 2013, but the Commission complains that this has not been followed through; in particular, that the government has abandoned its plan for a public service code (''code général de la fonction publique'').<ref>[http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/Droit-francais/Codification/Rapports-annuels-de-la-CSC Commission supérieure de codification, ''Vingt-quatrième rapport annuel 2013''] (Paris, 2014), 6-7.</ref>