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DOWNING COLLEGE ASSOCIATIONalmost all of continental Europe in the early 1800s. But if you think that, thenyou would be wrong. Wrong emperor! Wrong century! In fact, wrongmillennium!! El codi is the code of the Roman emperor Justinian who died in565 AD. And if someone bashes in your car, an Andorran lawyer will tell you,quite unselfconsciously, that you must sue within a year under the lex Aquilia.That law dates from the early third century BC.Technically the basis of Andorran civil law is the local custom, as amendedby the 1993 constitution, by treaties and by legislation of the parliament, andthe co-princes before 1993. However, the two most authoritative 18th centurycollections of customs, the Manual Digest of Antoni Fiter I Rossell and the Politarof Antoni Puig, make it quite clear that, when there is no contrary local custom,Andorran law is the Roman Law as applied together with Canon Law inCatalonia before the New Basis imposed by Philip V of Spain in 1716.With significant help from my first Catalan teacher, who has become a goodfriend, I wrote my dissertation about how the forms of law were used tocircumvent laws. I started in Roman times by citing examples of the use of thefideicommissum, the Roman testamentary trust, which is still part of the law ofAndorra. I then compared and contrasted the Anglo-American concept of thetrust with the fideicommissum, quoting Abdul Hameed v de Saram [1946] A.C.208. In looking for an offbeat English example of evading laws by the forms oflaw, I remembered a scene set in the 18th century in Barnaby Rudge, ratherappropriate for this Dickens year. In that scene Mr Haredale, the rigidlyCatholic father of the heroine, reproaches Lord George Gordon: “Is it notenough, my lord, that I, as good a gentleman as you, must hold my property,such as it is, by a trick at which the state connives because of these harshlaws;…”. I had some difficulty finding the particular harsh law since, fortunately,no part of it is still in force. For those interested, it is section IV of An Act forthe further preventing the Growth of Popery (1699–1700 11 & 12 Will.III c.4). The means of evasion were, of course, the English trust.Finally I commented on the use of Andorran prestanoms (namelenders) who enable foreigners to be the effective owners of businesseswhich are, in principle, barred to foreigners. Looking at the decisions ofthe Andorran Superior Court, which since 2003 have been publishedonline (http://www.justicia.ad/web/php/organitzacio.php?orgPK=3), I was verypositively impressed with the quality and fairness of the decisions. I have beentelling the expatriate community here that it is by no means the case that theforeigner always loses. When a business goes bust and the foreign real ownercannot be found, it is the Andorran prestanom who has to pay the creditors ofthe business, irrespective of whether those creditors are foreigners or nonresidents,or both. All this is based on a bold interpretation of a principle known55