How they work and main differences
I belive this may have been posted before, but it seems to me that even if that’s the case, the topic deserves a bump, am I right?
Thanks for any comments, even if it’s to tell me how I f’d up and this is actually r/rickandmorty or something stupid
Much love 💜
In: Other
Civil law is the system where the legislator -usally the parliament- is the ultimate authority of law and the courts only interpret the law. There is no precedent or binding decisions and while often there is some continuity of opinion, there are no binding decisions, so even slightly different circumstances can lead to different judgements. While the higher courts try to settle differences in opinions there are often prompts for the legislative to amend/change/create laws. Additionally laws come with some form of “legislators intent” – which states the goal of the laws.
Common Law is the system of law that comes about because of judges decisions instead of or in addition to explicitly written laws and statutes. It’s the idea of “precedent” or that if one judge makes a decision other judges have to honor that decision instead of basing any future decisions purely off of the written laws they’re referencing. This is how you get the idea that restricting, say, abortion or the sale of handguns is “unconstitutional” even though the constitution itself doesn’t say so — there is legal precedent from judges interpreting the constitution that say, and that ruling is binding on subsequent judges. Common law is in contrast to things like the Napoleonic system seen in France. Common law is the British system (historically speaking).
Civil law (which in America follows the common law system … they aren’t mutually exclusive or in opposition to each other) is the system of rules that govern how people have to interact privately, as opposed to with society at large or the government (criminal law). Examples of Civil Law include the laws that govern contracts or basically anything that resulted in a lawsuit with a payout to a individual instead of a government fine or jail time.
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