Summary

Despite an unsuccessful attempt by the Ministry of Justice to enact a General Part of Commercial Law Act in the mid-1990s, a new initiative has been launched to codify public commercial law. In August of 2010 the Estonian Government submitted the General Part of Commercial Law Act bill to the Riigikogu (parliament), which is to provide the general provisions of public commercial law in Estonia. The foundation of the bill can be found in the constitutional right of freedom of enterprise, and thus the bill endeavours to reduce the volume, extent and complexity of public commercial law legislation, so as to reduce bureaucracy and unjustified restrictions on fundamental rights. In this article, the author defines the term public commercial law and its function in relation to other areas of law, and examines German and Austrian public commercial law that served as a model for codification. The author then provides a general overview of the problems of unclear legislation and excessive bureaucracy in Estonian public commercial law and reflects on how codification could resolve them.