Judiciary

The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets, defends, and applies the law in the name of the state.

Mos Maiorum was a set of rules of conduct based on social norms created over the years by predecessors.

One would go to the head of the judicial system (at first the priests as law was part of religion) who would look at the applicable rules to the case.

The case would be put before the judges, which were normal Roman citizens in an uneven number.

[5] The most important change in this period was the shift from priest to praetor as the head of the judicial system.

The praetor would also make an edict in which he would declare new laws or principles for the year he was elected.

This process only had one phase, where the case was presented to a professional judge who was a representative of the emperor.

The most important legal event during this era was the Codification by Justinianus: the Corpus Iuris Civilis.

The Corpus Iuris Civilis consisted of four parts: During the late Middle Ages, education started to grow.

First education was limited to the monasteries and abbeys, but expanded to cathedrals and schools in the city in the 11th century, eventually creating universities.

The rediscovery of the Digesta from the Corpus Iuris Civilis led the university of Bologna to start teaching Roman law.

This led to the Glossators to start translating and recreating the Corpus Iuris Civilis and create literature around it: Accursius wrote the Glossa Ordinaria in 1263, ending the early scholastics.

They looked at a subject in a logical and systematic way by writing comments with the texts, treatises and consilia, which are advises given according to the old Roman law.

It forms the first part of the collection of six legal texts, which together became known as the Corpus Juris Canonici.

It was used by canonists of the Roman Catholic Church until Pentecost (19 May) 1918, when a revised Code of Canon Law (Codex Iuris Canonici) promulgated by Pope Benedict XV on 27 May 1917 obtained legal force.

[19][20][21] The Decretalists, like the post-glossators for Ius Civile, started to write treatises, comments and advises with the texts.

In this system the Supreme Court is always the final authority, but criminal cases have four stages, one more than civil law does.

Japan's process for selecting judges is longer and more stringent than in various countries, like the United States and in Mexico.

Supreme Court Judges must be of ages 35 to 65 and hold a law degree during the five years preceding their nomination.