Civil law (legal system)

This article is about the legal system originating in France and Italy. For non-criminal law under the common law legal system originating in England, see Civil law (common law). For other uses, see Civil law (disambiguation).
Legal systems of the world.[1] Civil law-based systems are in blue.
Part of a series on
Law
Foundations and Philosophy
Legal theory
Methodological background
Legal debate

Civil law is a legal system originating in Italy and France that has been adopted in large parts of the world. Modern civil law stems mainly from the Napoleonic Code of the early 19th century, and it is a continuation of ancient Roman law. Its core principles are codified into a referable system, which serves as the primary source of law.

The civil law system is often contrasted with the common law system, which originated in medieval England. Whereas the civil law takes the form of legal codes, the common law comes from uncodified case law that arises as a result of judicial decisions, recognising prior court decisions as legally binding precedent.[2]

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,[3] as well as doctrinal strains such as natural law, codification, and legal positivism. The Napoleonic Code is the most widespread system of law in the world, in force in various forms in about 120 countries.[4][unreliable source?]

Conceptually, civil law proceeds from abstractions, formulates general principles, and distinguishes substantive rules from procedural rules.[5] It holds case law secondary and subordinate to statutory law. Civil law is often paired with the inquisitorial system, but the terms are not synonymous. There are key differences between a statute and a code.[6] The most pronounced features of civil systems are their legal codes, with concise and broadly applicable texts that typically avoid factually specific scenarios.[7][6] 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.[6]

  1. ^ Alphabetical Index of the 192 United Nations Member States and Corresponding Legal Systems Archived 2016-07-22 at the Wayback Machine, Website of the Faculty of Law of the University of Ottawa
  2. ^ Husa, Jaakko (2016-05-02). "The Future of Legal Families". Oxford Handbook Topics in Law. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935352.013.26. ISBN 978-0-19-993535-2.
  3. ^ Charles Arnold Baker, The Companion to British History, s.v. "Civilian" (London: Routledge, 2001), 308.
  4. ^ "The Napoleonic Code | History of Western Civilization II". courses.lumenlearning.com. Retrieved 30 January 2021.
  5. ^ Michel Fromont, Grands systèmes de droit étrangers, 4th edn. (Paris: Dalloz, 2001), 8.
  6. ^ a b c Steiner, Eva (2018). "Codification". French Law. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780198790884.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-879088-4.
  7. ^ “The role of legislation is to set, by taking a broad approach, the general propositions of the law, to establish principles which will be fertile in application, and not to get down to the details. . . .” Alain Levasseur, Code Napoleon or Code Portalis?, 43 Tul. L. Rev. 762, 769 (1969).