Definition of civil law A body of rules that delineate private rights and remedies, and govern disputes between individuals in such areas as contracts, property Civil law (or civilian law) is a legal system originating in Europe, intellectualized within the framework of late Roman law, and whose most prevalent feature is that its core principles are codified into a referable system which serves as the primary source of law. This can be contrasted with common law systems whose intellectual framework comes from judge-made decisional law which gives precedential authority to prior court decisions on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different occasions (doctrine of judicial precedent). Historically, civil law is the group of legal ideas and systems ultimately derived from the Code of Justinian, but heavily overlaid by Germanic, canonical, feudal, and local practices, as well as doctrinal strains such as natural law, codification, and legislative positivism. Conceptually, civil law proceeds from abstractions, formulates general principles, and distinguishes substantive rules from procedural rules. It holds case law to be secondary and subordinate to statutory law. When discussing civil law, one should keep in mind the conceptual difference between a statute and a codal article. The marked feature of civilian systems is that they use codes with brief text that tend to avoid factually specific scenarios. Code articles deal in generalities and thus, stand at odds with statutory schemes which are often very long and very detailed. The purpose of codification is to provide all citizens with manners and written collection of the laws which apply to them and which judges must follow. It is the most widespread system of law in the world, in force in various forms in about 150 countries, and draws heavily from Roman law, arguably the most intricate known legal system dating from before the modern era. Colonial expansion spread the civil law which has been received in much of Latin America and parts of Asia and Africa. Civil law is sometimes referred to as neo-Roman law, Romano-Germanic law or Continental law. The expression civil law is a translation of Latin jus civile, or citizens law, which was the late imperial term for its legal system, as opposed to the laws governing conquered peoples (jus gentium); hence, the Justinian codes title Corpus Juris Civilis. Civilian lawyers, however, traditionally refer to their system in a broad sense as jus commune, literally common law, meaning the general principles of law as opposed to laws peculiar to particular areas. (The use of common law for the Anglo-Saxon systems may or may not be influenced by this usage.) Civil law is primarily contrasted with common law, which is the legal system developed first in England, and later among English-speaking peoples of the world. Despite their differences, the two systems are quite similar from a historical point of view. Both evolved in much the same way, though at different paces. The Roman law underlying civil law developed mainly from customary law that was refined with caselaw and legislation. Canon law further refined court procedure. Similarly, English law developed from Norman and Anglo-Saxon customary law, further refined by caselaw and legislation. The differences of course being that (1) Roman law had crystallised many of its principles and mechanisms in the form of the Justinian Code, which drew from caselaw, scholarly commentary, and senatorial statutes; and (2) civilian caselaw has persuasive authority, not binding authority as under common law. Codification, however, is by no means a defining characteristic of a civil law system. For example, the statutes that govern the civil law systems of Sweden and other Nordic countries or Roman-Dutch countries are not grouped into larger, expansive codes like those found in France and Germany.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 05:48:40 +0000
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