Florencio García Goyena

Who was Florencio García Goyena?

Florencio García Goyena was a Spanish jurist.

García Goyena studied law in Madrid and Salamanca before serving as legal counsel to the Cortes of Navarra and the governors of the provinces of Léon, Granada and Zaragoza. A liberal, he went into French exile from 1823 to 1834. Back in Spain, he served as fiscal of Burgos and as official in the provinces of Navarra, Guipúzcoa and Zaragoza. In 1835, García Goyena was appointed a judge of the appeals court in Burgos and later of the Audiencia and the Supreme Court in Madrid. In 1847 he briefly served as Minister of Justice.

He chaired a commission that produced, in 1851, a draft civil code for Spain, most of it written by García Goyena. Although the code was not adopted due to the strong opposition of leading regional families, who saw their power base threatened by the proposed harmonisation of regional inheritance and property laws, it was the basis of the codification later accomplished by Alonso Martínez in 1888/89.