The concept of domicile in private international law in Malta

Abstract

Roman law can be said to have established and defined with considerable exactness the concept of domicile. At the time of the complete development of the Roman constitution, towards the close of the Republic and during the first centuries of the Empire, all Italy beyond the city of Rome consisted of a great number of urban communities called for the most part, municipis and colonies, with some subordinate classes of communities. Each of them had a more or less independent constitution, with its own magistrates, with jurisdiction, and even with its own legislation. Every inhabitant was necessarily connected either with Rome or with one or more of these urban communities the bond of connection was either citizenship or domicile. Citizenship resulted from origo, adoption, manumission, or election so that it was possible for one person to be a citizen of several urban communities at the same time. That place which a man had freely chosen for his permanent abode and thus for the center at once of his legal relations and his business was regarded as his domicile.