Brave New Cyberlaw Book: The Weakening of Technique and Systematics in the Bill n. 4/2025 of Civil Code Reform

Abstract

This article analyzes the technical and systematic suitability of the Digital Civil Law book contained in the proposal to revise and update the 2002 Civil Code from two perspectives: I) the state of the art of technical and legal productions on Digital Law; and II) the hermeneutics of the current private legal system. The first section demonstrates the facts and arguments that led to the inclusion of the digital domain in Draft Bill 4/2025. The second analyzes the systematic suitability and adherence of the proposal to the Civil law system, based on the principles and hermeneutics of the Civil Code. The third section explores how technical the proposals and normative terminologies in the book are, based on the current and historical production of Civil Law and Digital Law. Finally, the fourth section takes up the systematic analysis to identify which legal relationships may or may not be classified as appropriate to be protected by the Civil Code. As a result, the reasons for amending the Civil Code, if based on the proposal for a new Book of Digital Law, lack factual support. Furthermore, it can be seen that the proposal for a Digital Civil Law Book breaks with the legal-principle system of the current Civil Code because it is inserted there without any observance of the normative and principiological precepts established. Finally, we conclude that the proposal for a book on Digital Civil Law is technically and hermeneutically inadequate given the current state of the art. The hermeneutic method and the integrated method associated with bibliographical research are used to reach the results and conclusions set out.