would be as useless as risky since it could give the servant cause to refuse to perform the tasks that the master ordered.203 In another important sense, however, the committee deviated from the well-established legislative pattern. In its controversial proposal of 1826 the committee suggested that the contracting parties themselves should be entrusted to decide the duration of the contract, which implied that the servant should be fully entitled to quit the relationship, whenever he or she wished.The minimum time of one year, which had been a mandatory rule since the medieval provincial codes, should be stipulated only for those agreements that lacked an explicit regulation in this respect. Even if the parties agreed upon a longer period, each party should have the right to terminate after one year.204 However, the committee was not unanimous in this respect. Anders Erik Afzelius (1779-1850) referred to traditional views by claiming that the option to cancel an annual agreement at any time could often result in “premature notices of termination and awkward relationships between master and servant”.The other members of the committee, including the famous liberal Johan Gabriel Richert (1784-1864), responded that the proposed regulation, such as a free right to give notice of termination of the contract, would not reduce the servant’s respect for the master.205 Obviously, the general feature of the committee’s proposal was intended to loosen the bounds of positive law around the masterservant relationship by facilitating short-time relationships and to give the parties, or the market forces, greater independence in deciding the terms of the contract regarding the hiring of services. This switch towards greater flexibility, which no doubt c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 97 203 LagCommiteen, Förslag till Handelsbalk 1815 (The Law Committee, Proposal on a Book on Commerce 1815), p. 101. 204 LagCommiteen, Förslag till Allmän Civillag; Förslag till Handelsbalk1826(The Law Committee, Proposal on a General Civil Code,The Book on Commerce 1826), 11:2, 13, pp. 136-139, 195. 205 Protokoll den 13 april 1815 in Förslag till Allmän Civillag 1826, Bihang 1 (Minutes from the proceedings in the Law Committee,April 13, 1815, Proposal for a General Civil Code, Appendix 1), p. 58.
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