List of national legal systems

However, the legal system of each country is shaped by its unique history and so incorporates individual variations.

[2][3][4] The source of law that is recognized as authoritative is codifications in a constitution or statute passed by legislature, to amend a code.

1790 BC, civil law systems derive from the Roman Empire and, more particularly, the Corpus Juris Civilis issued by the Emperor Justinian ca.

Scholars of comparative law and economists promoting the legal origins theory usually subdivide civil law into distinct groups: However, some of these legal systems are often and more correctly said to be of hybrid nature: The Italian civil code of 1942 replaced the original one of 1865, introducing germanistic elements due to the geopolitical alliances of the time.

[7] The Italian approach has been imitated by other countries including Portugal (1966), the Netherlands (1992), Lithuania (2000), Brazil (2002) and Argentina (2014).

Most of them have innovations introduced by the Italian legislation, including the unification of the civil and commercial codes.

Federal courts and 49 states use the legal system based on English common law (see below), which has diverged somewhat since the mid-nineteenth century in that they look to each other's cases for guidance on issues of the first impression and rarely look at contemporary cases on the same issue in the UK or the Commonwealth.

Common law was later inherited by the Commonwealth of Nations, and almost every former colony of the British Empire has adopted it (Malta being an exception).

It served as a kind of medieval bill of rights for the aristocracy and the judiciary who developed the law.

[42] It is based on both divine law, derived from the hadith of the Quran and Sunnah, and the rulings of ulema (jurists), who use the methods of ijma (consensus), qiyas (analogical deduction), ijtihad (research), and urf (common practice) to derive fatwā (legal opinions).

An ulema was required to qualify for an ijazah (legal doctorate) at a madrasa (law school or college) before they could issue fatwā.

Instead, it is seen as human law inspired by the word of God and applying the demands of that revelation to the actual situation of the church.