Civil law (legal system)

Concept and origin of Civil law Civil law is a legal system inspired by Roman law, the primary feature of which is that laws are written into a collection, codified, and not (as in common law) determined by judges. Civil law, as opposed to criminal law, is the branch of law dealing with disputes between individuals and/or organizations, in which compensation may be awarded to the victim. Conceptually, it is the group of legal ideas and systems ultimately derived from the Code of justinian, but heavily overlaid by Germanic, feudal, and local practices, as well as doctrinal strains such as natural law, codification, and legislative positivism. Materially, civil law proceeds from abstractions, formulates general principles, and distinguishes substantive rules from procedural rules. It holds legislation as the primary source of law, and the court system is usually inquisitorial, unbound by precedent, and composed of specially trained judicial officers with a limited authority to interpret law. Juries separate from the judges are not used, although in some cases, volunteer lay judges participate along with legally trained career judges.

The principle of civil law is to provide all citizens with an accessible and written collection of the laws which apply to them and which judges must follow. It is the most widespread type of legal system in the world, applied in various forms in approximately 150 countries and oldest surviving legal system in the world. Colonial expansion spread the civil law system and European civil law has been adopted in much of Latin America as well as in parts of Asia and Africa.

The primary source of law is the legal code, which is a compendium of statutes, arranged by subject matter in some pre-specified order; a code may also be described as "a systematic collection of interrelated articles written in a terse, staccato style.

 Law codes are usually created by a legistature's enactment of a new statute that embodies all the old statutes relating to the subject and including changes necessitated by court decisions. In some cases, the change results in a new statutory concept.
Civil law systems may be subdivided into distinct group or further categories:

1.       FRENCH CIVIL LAW:  France the Benelux countries Italy Spain and former colonies of these countries.

2.       GREMAN CIVIL LAW:  German Austria Switzerland Greece Portugal turkey Japan South Korea Republic of China

3.       SCANADINAVIAN CIVIL LAW:  Denmark Norway Sweden Finland and Iceland

 History

The civil law system takes as its major inspiration Roman law, and in particular the Corpus Juris Civilis of Emperor Justinian, and subsequent expounding and developments in Medieval Roman Law. Roman law was received differently in different countries. 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. The law that had been in force throughout the Roman Empire when it controlled most of Europe and the Middle East was to some extent supplanted by Germanic laws when Germanic tribes carried out

Roman law was in place in the Byzantine Empire until its final fall in the 15th century. However, subject as it was to multiple incursions and occupations in the latter middle Ages, its laws became widely available in Western Europe. It was first received into 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. It became the basis of Scots law, though partly rivaled by feudal Common law. In England, it was taught academically at Oxford and Cambridge, but underlay only probate and matrimonial law, inherited by canon law when secularized, and maritime law, adapted from the law merchant through the Bordeaux trade.

Consequently, neither of the two waves of Romanism completely dominated in Europe. Roman law was a secondary source that was applied only when local customs and laws were found lacking on a certain subject. However, after a time, even local law came to be interpreted and evaluated primarily on the basis of Roman law (it being a common European legal tradition of sorts), thereby in turn influencing the main source of law. Eventually, the works of Civilian glossators and commentators led to the development of a common body of law and writing about law, a common legal language, and a common method of teaching and scholarship, all termed the jus commune, or law common to Europe, which consolidated canon law and Roman law, and to some extend feudal law. Civil law is primarily contrasted with common law, which is the legal system developed among Anglophone people, especially in England.

In later times, civil law became codified as droit coutumier or customary laws that were local compilations of legal principles recognized as normative. Sparked by the age of  enlightenment, attempts to codify private law began during the second half of the 18th century (see civil code), but civil codes with a lasting influence were promulgated only after the France Revolution, in jurisdictions such as France, Austria ,Quebec(see Civil Code of Quebec), Italy(Codices’ Civil), Portugal(Coding), Spain(Coding Civil), the Netherlands(see Burgerlijk Wetboek), and Germany.

DEVELOPMENT OF CIVIL LAW

'Civil Law' is a system of codified law based on ancient Roman law known as the Code of Justinian. It is a written code of law that judges must follow. Civil Law codes are used in most countries in Europe and South America, and some parts of Africa and Asia. Those codes have been modified and modernized at various times.

 Civil law is the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the seventh century AD — when the Roman–Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of government. The development of Roman law(civil law) comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence— from the Twelve Table(ca.439BC) to the Corpus juris civilis(AD 528–35) ordered by Emperor Justinian I. This Roman law, the Justinian Code, was effective in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire (331–1453), and also served as a basis for legal practice in continental Europe, as well as in Ethiopia, and most former colonies of European nations, including Latin America.

Civil law is used to refer to three different bodies of law:

1. A legal system derived from Roman law and commonly used in Europe

2. The set of rules governing relations between persons (either human’s or legal personalities such as corporations).

3. Secular Law, as opposed to canon law.

Civil law (as opposed to "common law") is a legal tradition which is the

Basis of the law in many countries of the world, especially in continental

Europe, but also Quebec, Japan, Latin America, and elsewhere. Some authors wrongly think that the Scottish legal system is also based on Civil law, which is historically correct, but it has been developing since 1707 into a mixed system combining elements of civil law and of common law as the House of Lords in England being the court of last resort for Scotland has interpreted Scots Law through the lens of English jurisprudence. In the western and southwestern parts of the U.S., laws in such diverse areas as divorce and water rights show the influence of their Iberian civil-law heritage, being based on distinctly different principles from the laws of the northeastern states colonized by settlers with English common-law roots.

The civil law is based on Roman law, especially the Corpus Juris Civilis of

Emperor Justinian, as latter developed through the middle Ages by mediaeval Legal scholars. The most authoritative modern source is Karl Eduard Zachariah.

Originally civil law was one common legal system in much of Europe, but with the development of nationalism in the 17th century Nordic countries and around the time of the French Revolution, it became fractured into separate national systems. This change was brought about by the development of national codes, most importantly the Napoleonic Code, but the German and Swiss codes are also of historical importance. Around this time civil law incorporated many ideas associated with the Enlightenment.