List of national legal systems

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Legal systems of the world)

Jump to navigationJump to search

Legal systems of the world

The contemporary legal systems of the world are generally based on one of four
basic systems: civil law, common law, statutory law, religious law or combinations of these.
However, the legal system of each country is shaped by its unique history and so
incorporates individual variations.[1] The science that studies Law at the level of legal
systems is called Comparative Law.
Both civil (also known as Roman) and common law systems can be considered the most
widespread in the world: civil law because it is the most widespread by landmass, and
common law because it is employed by the greatest number of people.[2][3][4]

Contents

 1Civil law
 2Common law
 3Religious law
 4Pluralistic systems
o 4.1Civil law and canon law
o 4.2Civil law and common law
o 4.3Civil law and sharia law
o 4.4Common law and sharia law
 5Hybrid law
 6Perceptions
 7By geography
 8See also
 9References
o 9.1Citations
o 9.2Sources
 10External links

Civil law[edit]
Main article: Civil law (legal system)
Shamash (the Babylonian sun god) hands King Hammurabi a code of law

The central source of law that is recognized as authoritative is codifications in a constitution

or statute passed by legislature, to amend a code. While the concept of codification dates
back to the Code of Hammurabi in Babylon ca. 1790 BC, civil law systems derive from
the Roman Empire and, more particularly, the Corpus Juris Civilis issued by the
Emperor Justinian ca. AD 529. This was an extensive reform of the law in the Byzantine
Empire, bringing it together into codified documents. Civil law was also partly influenced
by religious laws such as Canon law and Islamic law.[5][6] Civil law today, in theory, is
interpreted rather than developed or made by judges. Only legislative enactments (rather
than legal precedents, as in common law) are considered legally binding.
Scholars of comparative law and economists promoting the legal origins theory usually
subdivide civil law into four distinct groups:

 French civil law: in France, the Benelux countries, Italy, Romania, Spain and former
colonies of those countries;
 German civil law: in Germany, Austria, Russia, Switzerland, Estonia, Latvia, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo*, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Serbia,
Greece, Portugal and its former colonies, Turkey, and East Asian countries including
Japan, Thailand, South Korea and Taiwan (Republic of China);
 Scandinavian civil law: in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. As historically integrated in
the Scandinavian cultural sphere, Finland and Iceland also inherited the system.
 Chinese law: a mixture of civil law and socialist law in use in the People's Republic of
China.
However, some of these legal systems are often and more correctly said to be of hybrid
nature:

 Napoleonic to Germanistic influence (Italian civil law)

The Italian civil code of 1942 replaced the original one of 1865, introducing germanistic
elements due to the geopolitical alliances of the time.[7] The Italian approach has been
imitated by other countries including
the Netherlands (1992), Argentina (2014), Brazil (2002) and Portugal (1966). Most of them
have innovations introduced by the Italian legislation, including the unification of
the civil and commercial codes.[8]

 Germanistic to Napoleonic influence (Swiss civil law)

The Swiss civil code is considered mainly influenced by the German civil code and partly
influenced by the French civil code. The civil code of the Republic of Turkey is a slightly
modified version of the Swiss code, adopted in 1926 during Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's
presidency as part of the government's progressive reforms and secularization.
A comprehensive list of countries that base their legal system on a codified civil law follows: