For a partial list of countries with common law and civil law systems, see Legal systems of the world on Wikipedia Napoleonic to Germanic influence: The Italian Civil Code of 1942 replaced the original one of 1865 and introduced Germanist elements due to the geopolitical alliances of the time. [20] This approach has been emulated by other countries, including Portugal (1966), the Netherlands (1992), Brazil (2002) and Argentina (2014). Most of them have innovations introduced by Italian legislation, including the unification of the Civil and Commercial Code. [21] The term civil law comes from English jurisprudence and is used in the English-speaking world to group together all the legal systems of the common juice tradition. However, legal comparators and economists who defend the theory of legal origins prefer to divide civil law jurisdictions into four distinct groups: A civil law system is generally more prescriptive than a common law system. However, a government has yet to determine whether specific legislation is needed to limit the scope of a particular restriction in order to enable the success of an infrastructure project, or whether specific legislation is needed for a sector. For more information, see Legislation and Regulation and Organizing Government to Think PPP. Several Islamic countries have civil law systems that incorporate elements of Islamic law. [24] For example, the Egyptian Civil Code of 1810, which emerged in the early 19th century, is based on the Egyptian Civil Code. It was developed on the Napoleonic Code – which is still in force in Egypt and is the basis of civil law in many countries in the Arab world where civil law is used – but its main author Abd El-Razzak El-Sanhuri tried to integrate the principles and characteristics of Islamic law to take into account the unique circumstances of Egyptian society. Some authors consider civil law as the basis of socialist law used in communist countries, which, according to this view, would essentially be civil law with the addition of Marxist-Leninist ideals.
Even if this were the case, civil law was generally the legal system that existed before the advent of socialist law, and some Eastern European countries reverted to pre-socialist civil law after the fall of socialism, while others continued to use a socialist legal system. Civil law is based on Roman law, in particular the Corpus Juris Civilis of Emperor Justinian, as it was developed later in the Middle Ages by medieval jurists. However, codification is not an essential feature of a civil law system. For example, the civil law systems of Scotland and South Africa are not codified, and the civil law systems of the Scandinavian countries remain largely uncodified. The civil law system contrasts with the common law, which originated in England and is generally adopted by countries around the world with a history as British territories or colonies. For the Japanese legal system, from the Meiji era, European legal systems – especially the civil law of Germany and France – were the main models of imitation. In China, the German Civil Code was introduced in the last years of the Qing Dynasty and imitates Japan. In addition, it formed the basis of the law of the Republic of China, which remains in force in Taiwan. In addition, Korea, Taiwan and Manchuria, former Japanese colonies, have been heavily influenced by the Japanese legal system. Civil or civil law is a legal tradition that forms the basis of law in most countries of the world, particularly in continental Europe and the former Soviet Union, but also in Quebec (Canada), Louisiana (United States), Puerto Rico (United States). Territory), Japan, Latin America and most of the former colonies of continental European countries.
The Scottish legal system is generally regarded as a mixed system because Scots law has a basis in Roman law and combines the characteristics of the uncodified and civil law systems. In the western and southwestern United States, laws in areas as diverse as divorce and water rights show the influence of their Iberian civil law heritage, which is markedly different from the laws of the northeastern states colonized by settlers with English common law roots. In this context, the private law of the Land applies `in addition to any federal provision which concerns a matter of private law in order to supplement it …` [19] Although the concept of private law traditionally encompasses all rules of law applicable to relations between individuals, in some cases these rules have an impact on the development, interpretation or application of rules which, prima facie, do not concern relations between individuals. In civil law systems where codes exist, the main source of law is the Code, a systematic collection of interrelated articles[8] arranged by subject in a predetermined order. [9] The codes explain the principles of law, rights and prerogatives and the operation of basic legal mechanisms. The purpose of codification is to provide all citizens with morals and a written compendium of the laws that apply to them and that judges must follow. Legal texts are laws enacted by a legislator, although they are usually much longer than other laws. The Code does not contain a collection of laws or a catalogue of case law, but general principles as legal norms. [8] Other important legal systems in the world include common law, Islamic law, halacha and canon law. The difference between civil law and common law therefore lies not only in the mere fact of codification, but also in the methodological approach of codes and statutes. In civil law countries, legislation is considered the main source of law. The courts therefore base their judgments on the provisions of codes and statutes from which solutions can be drawn in individual cases.
Courts must therefore argue extensively on the basis of the general rules and principles of the Code and often draw analogies with legislative provisions in order to fill gaps and ensure consistency. In contrast, in the common law system, cases are the primary source of law, while statutes are considered only as interference with the common law and are therefore interpreted restrictively. The common law is characterized by its method and inductive reasoning, which consists of generalizing from precedents and observing similarities. Civil law, on the other hand, is characterized by its deductive method, a high degree of abstraction and generalization. [18] In short, the civil law method is rational, that of the empirical common law. However, there are some sociological differences. Civilian judges are generally trained and promoted separately from lawyers, while common law judges are generally chosen from among accomplished and respected lawyers. The influence of jurists` articles on case law also tends to be much greater in civil law countries. Since Germany was a rising power in the late nineteenth century, when many Asian countries introduced civil law, the German Civil Code has become the basis of their legal systems. This is how Japan and South Korea operate under civil law. In China, the German Civil Code was introduced in the last years of the Qing Dynasty and formed the basis of the law of the People`s Republic of China, which is still valid today.
Historically, civil law is the set of legal ideas and systems ultimately derived from the Corpus juris civilis, but strongly superimposed by Napoleonic, Germanic, canonical, feudal and local practices,[2] as well as by doctrinal currents such as natural law, codification and legal positivism. However, this satisfactory separation of powers is sometimes diminished when we think of the juxtaposition of public and private law in a single law, such as the common law retained by the federal legislature and the civil law of Quebec. Nor should we forget that the legal structure in these areas follows different basic structures. Moreover, as the Honourable Justice Viau argues, the term “civil law” actually originated in English-speaking countries, where it was used to summarize all non-English-speaking legal traditions and contrast them with English common law. However, since continental European traditions are by no means uniform, comparators generally divide civil law into four different groups: The underlying principle of separation of powers is perceived somewhat differently in civil law and common law countries. In some common law countries, particularly the United States, judges are seen as balancing the power of other branches of government. On the other hand, the original idea of the separation of powers in France was to assign different roles to the legislature and to judges, the latter applying only the law (the judge as the mouth of the law; “The Mouth of the Law”). As a result, many civil courts reject the formalistic notion of binding precedent (although they take due account of settled case law) and some civil law systems are based on the inquisitorial system rather than the adversarial system. Unlike common law systems, civil law courts deal with case law independently of precedent.
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