Common law systems like England, or those that follow the English model, rely on a body of case law which forms the basis of a system of judicial precedent. The advantage of this is that not everything needs to be legislated, a judge can make a decision when called upon to make it, and that same rule will be applied in every similar case in future. This has the advantage of actually keeping cases out of court - if you know what the result will be before going to court, there is no need to proceed. The problem is that the system is not very flexible and is slow to respond to the need to change.What is the primary distinction between common law and civil law legal systems?
Civil law means that the legislators passed a law and it has specifics. That is civil or codified law. Common law is not necessarily written but has been formed over time and is more from court. Began back in feudal England and common law is in England and in most of the US. Exceptions are areas where French controlled and they are entirely civil law, like Louisiana. If it is not written that is not law. But common law is a series of understandings and most property law is common law.
It is law that came over time as to how things are done. It developed in the church law and the English parliament where the petitioners could appeal to the church and they looked at fairness.
In our judicial system, there is a case and the judges have a decision and that decision is based on precedents in how the law was decided before. it is supposed to be fair. But sometimes over time, there are some changes in the results even though there was no additional codified law or civil law.
Roe vs. Wade is on common law, but also on privacy rights under the constitution but it is based on common law.
Traffic laws are civil law -- it is written out precisely. But not all laws are written out specifically.
Common law is hard to describe as to specifics. it is based on tradition and has a fairness about it rather than everythhing based on specifics in codified law. The biggest thing is property law which is all based in feudal law and in common law. Look at marriage. There are marriages which are codified in law. However, in many states there was also common law marriage where the couple said they were married and behaved as though they were and they were. That is still recognized in all states if it was valid in a previous state in which they entered common law marriage. However, many states who used to have common law marriages changed law to have only civil marriages, yet they will recognize the common law marriages from other states. That is one big issue on the gay relationship issues.What is the primary distinction between common law and civil law legal systems?
Civil law is the legal system of written (codified) laws, whereas common law is developed by judges or decisions from the bench. In a common law jurisdiction (such as the US, Canada, and the UK), greater weight is placed on the precedent, or cases that have gone before. In the civil system, greater weight is placed on the written statutes.
In civil law, the two distinctions are common law and statutory law. Common law arises out of the decisions in court cases. Statutory law is written and adopted by governments.
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