Civil law (legal system)
Civil law is a legal system rooted in the Roman Empire and was comprehensively codified and disseminated starting in the 19th century, most notably with France's Napoleonic Code (1804) and Germany's Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (1900).
[8] Historically, a civil law is the group of legal ideas and systems ultimately derived from the Corpus Juris Civilis, but heavily overlain by Napoleonic, Germanic, canonical, feudal, and local practices,[9] as well as doctrinal strains such as natural law, codification, and legal positivism.
[11] The most pronounced features of civil systems are their legal codes, with concise and broadly applicable texts that typically avoid factually specific scenarios.
[12][11] The short articles in a civil law code deal in generalities and stand in contrast with ordinary statutes, which are often very long and very detailed.
Civil law practitioners, however, traditionally refer to their system in a broad sense as jus commune.
It draws heavily from Roman law, arguably the most intricate legal system before the modern era.
[15] Codes explain the principles of law, rights, and entitlements, and how basic legal mechanisms work.
The purpose of codification is to provide all citizens with manners and a written collection of the laws which apply to them and which judges must follow.
[16] While civil law jurisdictions place little reliance on court decisions, they tend to generate a phenomenal number of reported legal opinions.
[19] The Justinian Code's doctrines provided a sophisticated model for contracts, rules of procedure, family law, wills, and a strong monarchical constitutional system.
In some it went into force wholesale by legislative act, i.e., it became positive law, whereas in others it was diffused into society by increasingly influential legal experts and scholars.
It was first received in the Holy Roman Empire partly because it was considered imperial law, and it spread in Europe mainly because its students were the only trained lawyers.
Under feudal law, a number of private custumals were compiled, first under the Norman empire (Très ancien coutumier, 1200–1245), then elsewhere, to record the manorial—and later regional—customs, court decisions, and the legal principles underpinning them.
Two prominent examples include the Coutume de Paris (written 1510; revised 1580), which served as the basis for the Napoleonic Code, and the Sachsenspiegel (c. 1220) of the bishoprics of Magdeburg and Halberstadt which was used in northern Germany, Poland, and the Low Countries.
The concept of codification was further developed during the 17th and 18th centuries AD, as an expression of both natural law and the ideas of the Enlightenment.
The political ideals of that era was expressed by the concepts of democracy, protection of property and the rule of law.
In China, the German Civil Code was introduced in the later years of the Qing dynasty, emulating Japan.
[27] For example, the Napoleonic Code expressly forbade French judges to pronounce general principles of law.
[31] For example, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Armenian Parliament, with substantial support from USAID, adopted new legal codes.
[34] In actual practice, an increasing degree of precedent is creeping into civil law jurisprudence, and is generally seen in many nations' highest courts.
prefer to subdivide civil law jurisdictions into distinct groups: However, some of these legal systems are often and more correctly said to be of hybrid nature: Napoleonic to Germanistic influence: The Italian civil code of 1942 replaced the original one of 1865, introducing German elements as a result of its World War II Axis alliance.
Swiss law is categorized as Germanistic, but it has been heavily influenced by the Napoleonic tradition, with some indigenous elements added in as well.
[41] Regarding the latter, the code borrows the doctrine of ultra vires and the precedent of Hadley v Baxendale from English common law system.
