Civil law is a legal system The three major legal systems of the world today consist of civil law, common law and religious law. However, each country often develops variations on each system or incorporates many other features into the system inspired by Roman law The term Roman law denotes 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 comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence — from the Twelve Tables to the Corpus Juris, the primary feature of which is that laws are written into a collection, codified In law, codification is the process of collecting and restating the law of a jurisdiction in certain areas, usually by subject, forming a legal code, i.e. a codex of law, and not (as in common law Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals , rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action. A "common law system" is a legal system that gives great precedential weight to common law, on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different) determined by judges A judge, or arbiter of justice, is a lead who presides over a court of law, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is like an umpire in a game and conducts the trial impartially and in an open court. The.^[1] Conceptually, it is the group of legal ideas and systems ultimately derived from the Code of Justinian The Corpus Juris Civilis ("Body of Civil Law") is the modern name for a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Justinian I, Eastern Roman Emperor. It is also referred to as the Code of Justinian, but heavily overlaid by Germanic, ecclesiastical, feudal, and local practices,^[2] as well as doctrinal strains such as natural law Natural law or the law of nature has been described as a law whose content is set by nature and that therefore has validity everywhere. As classically used, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. The phrase natural law is opposed to the positive law (meaning "man-made law&, codification, and legislative positivism. Materially, civil law proceeds from abstractions, formulates general principles, and distinguishes substantive rules from procedural rules.^[3] 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 ability to interpret law.

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 prevalent and oldest surviving legal system in the world. Colonial expansion spread the civil law system and European Europe is one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus region (Specification of borders) and the Black Sea to the southeast. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean and civil law has been adopted in much of Latin America Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages (i.e., those derived from Latin) – particularly Spanish, Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,501 km² (7,880,000 sq mi), almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area. As of 2009, its as well as in parts of Asia Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 4 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population. During the 20th century Asia's population nearly quadrupled and Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people (as of 2009, see table) in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.72% of the world's human population.^[4] The primary source of law is the legal code A civil code is a systematic collection of laws designed to comprehensively deal with the core areas of private law. A jurisdiction that has a civil code generally also has a code of civil procedure. In some jurisdictions with a civil code, a number of the core areas of private law that would otherwise typically be codified in a civil code may, which is a compendium of statutes This word is used in contradistinction to the common law. Statutes acquire their force from the time of their passage unless otherwise provided. Statutes are of several kinds; namely, Public or private. Declaratory or remedial. Temporary or perpetual. 1. A temporary statute is one which is limited in its duration at the time of its enactment. It, arranged by subject matter in some pre-specified order^[5]; a code may also be described as "a systematic collection of interrelated articles written in a terse, staccato style." ^[6] Law codes are usually created by a legislature A legislature is a type of deliberative assembly with the power to pass, amend, and repeal laws. The law created by a legislature is called legislation or statutory law. In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise taxes and adopt the budget and other money bills. Legislatures are known by many names, the'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. The two other major legal systems in the world are common law Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals , rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action. A "common law system" is a legal system that gives great precedential weight to common law, on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different and Islamic law All Sharia is derived from two primary sources, the divine revelations set forth in the Qur'an, and the sayings and example set by the Prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh, or "jurisprudence," interprets and extends the application of Sharia to questions not directly addressed in the primary sources, by including secondary sources. These.

Civil law systems may be subdivided into further categories:

• Countries where Roman law in some form is still living law and there has been no attempt to create a civil code: Andorra Andorra /ænˈdɒrə/ , officially the Principality of Andorra (Catalan: Principat d'Andorra), also called the Principality of the Valleys of Andorra, (Catalan: Principat de les Valls d'Andorra), is a small country in southwestern Europe, located in the eastern Pyrenees mountains and bordered by Spain and France. It is the sixth smallest nation in and San Marino San Marino, officially the Most Serene Republic of San Marino (pronounced /ˌsan maˈriːno/ SAN-mə-REE-noh; Italian: Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino), is a country situated on the eastern side of the Apennine Mountains. It is a landlocked enclave, completely surrounded by Italy. Its size is just over 61 km2 (24 sq mi) with an estimated
• Countries with mixed systems in which Roman law is an academic source of authority but common law is also influential: Scotland Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the southwest. In addition to the mainland, Scotland and the Roman-Dutch law Roman Dutch law is a legal system based on Roman law as applied in the Netherlands in the 17th and 18th centuries. As such, it is a variety of the European continental civil law or ius commune. While Roman Dutch law ceased to be applied in the Netherlands proper as early as the beginning of the 19th century, Roman Dutch law is still applied by the countries (South Africa Coordinates: 29°02′46″S 25°03′47″E / 29.046°S 25.063°E The Republic of South Africa is a country located at the southern tip of Africa, with a 2,798 kilometres coastline on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. To the north lie Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe; to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland; while Lesotho is an independent, Zambia The Republic of Zambia is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west. The capital city is Lusaka, located in the south-central part of the, Zimbabwe Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the continent of Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three official languages: English, Shona (a Bantu language), and Ndebele (also a, Sri Lanka As a result of its location in the path of major sea routes, Sri Lanka is a strategic naval link between West Asia and South East Asia.[citation needed] It has also been a center of the Buddhist religion and culture from ancient times and is one of the few remaining abodes of Buddhism in South Asia, including Ladakh, Bhutan and the Chittagong Hill and Guyana Guyana (pronounced /ɡaɪˈænə/ gye-AN-ə), officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana and previously known as British Guiana, is a state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana has been a former colony of the British, Dutch and for a brief period, the French. It is the only state of)
• Countries with codes intended to be comprehensive, such as France France is a founding member state of the European Union and is the largest one by area. France has been a major power for several centuries with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and in the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America; during the 19th and early 20th: it is this last category that is normally regarded as typical of "civil law" systems, and is discussed in the rest of this article.

The Scandinavian systems are of an intermediate character, as they have a background of Roman and customary law together with partial codification. The laws of Louisiana Law in the State of Louisiana is based in part on civil law. Louisiana is unique among the 50 U.S. states in having a legal system partially based on French and Spanish codes and ultimately Roman law, as opposed to English common law. Louisiana thus follows the system of most non-Anglophone countries in the world and Quebec Quebec law is unique in Canada because Quebec is the only province in Canada to have a bijuridical legal system under which civil matters are regulated by French-heritage civil law and criminal law operates according to Canadian common law may also be considered as hybrid systems, in that a French-type civil code coexists with pre-revolutionary French customary law and considerable common law influence.

A prominent example of civil law would be the Napoleonic Code The Napoleonic Code — or Code Napoléon — is the French civil code, established under Napoléon I in 1804. The code forbade privileges based on birth, allowed freedom of religion, and specified that government jobs go to the most qualified. It was drafted rapidly by a commission of four eminent jurists and entered into force on March 21, 1804 (1804 Year 1804 was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Friday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar)), named after French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte Napoleon Bonaparte , was a military and political leader of France and Emperor of the French as Napoleon I, whose actions shaped European politics in the early 19th century. The Code comprises three components: the law of persons, property law, and commercial law. Rather than a catalog of judicial decisions, the Code consists of abstractly written principles as rules of law. ^[6]

Civil law is sometimes referred to as neo-Roman law, Romano-Germanic law or Continental law. The expression civil law is a translation of Latin jus civile, or "citizens' law", which was the Late Imperial term for its legal system, as opposed to the laws governing conquered peoples (jus gentium).

History

The civil law system takes as its major inspiration Roman law The term Roman law denotes 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 comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence — from the Twelve Tables to the Corpus Juris, and in particular the Corpus Juris Civilis The Corpus Juris Civilis ("Body of Civil Law") is the modern name for a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Justinian I, Eastern Roman Emperor. It is also referred to as the Code of Justinian of Emperor Justinian Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus ; AD 483 – 13 or 14 November 565, known in English as Justinian I or Justinian the Great, was the second member of the Justinian Dynasty (after his uncle, Justin I) and Eastern Roman Emperor from 527 until his death. During his reign, Justinian sought to revive the greatness of the classical Roman Empire, and subsequent expounding and developments during the Middle Ages The Middle Ages is a period of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The period followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, and preceded the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period in a three-period division of history: Classical, Medieval, and Modern. The term "Middle Ages" (medium aevum) was coined in.^[7] Roman law was received differently in different countries. In some it went into force wholesale by legislative act, i.e., it became positive law In the strictest sense, it is law made by human beings, that is, "Law actually and specifically enacted or adopted by proper authority for the government of an organized jural society." This term is also sometimes used to refer to the legal philosophy, legal positivism, as distinct from the schools of natural law and legal realism, whereas in others it was diffused into society by increasingly influential legal experts and scholars.

Roman law was in place in the Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire was the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire of the Middle Ages, centered around its capital of Constantinople, and ruled by the Byzantine emperors in direct succession to their ancient Roman predecessors. It was called the Roman Empire and also Romania (Greek: Ῥωμανία, Rhōmanía) by its inhabitants and neighbours. As 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 The Holy Roman Empire (HRE; German: Heiliges Römisches Reich , Latin: Imperium Romanum Sacrum (IRS), Italian: Sacro Romano Impero (SRI)) was for about a millennium a realm in Central Europe under a Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in 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 Scots law is a unique legal system which has roots in various different sources of law. Up until the mid-tenth century, the law in Scotland was almost certainly Celtic, but after that point, feudal and canon law gradually took over. On succeeding to the throne in 1124, King David I introduced elements of Anglo-Norman laws and legal institutions,, 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 Romanism was a word used as a derogatory term for Roman Catholicism in the past when anti-Catholicism was more common in the United States and the United Kingdom. The term was frequently used in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century Republican invectives against the Democrats, as part of the slogan "Rum, rebellion, and 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 extent, feudal law.

Codification

An important characteristic, beyond Roman law foundations, is the extended codification of the adopted Roman law, i.e. its inclusion into civil codes A civil code is a systematic collection of laws designed to comprehensively deal with the core areas of private law. A jurisdiction that has a civil code generally also has a code of civil procedure. In some jurisdictions with a civil code, a number of the core areas of private law that would otherwise typically be codified in a civil code may. The system of codification In law, codification is the process of collecting and restating the law of a jurisdiction in certain areas, usually by subject, forming a legal code, i.e. a codex of law has its origins in the Code of Hammurabi The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved ancient law code, created ca. 1790 BC (middle chronology) in ancient Babylon. It was enacted by the sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi. One nearly complete example of the Code survives today, inscribed on a seven foot, four inch tall diorite stele in the Akkadian language in the cuneiform script, written in ancient Babylon Babylon was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad. All that remains of the original ancient famed city of Babylon today is a mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between during the 18th century BC.

The concept of codification was further developed during the 17th and 18th centuries AD, as an expression of both Natural Law Natural law or the law of nature has been described as a law whose content is set by nature and that therefore has validity everywhere. As classically used, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. The phrase natural law is opposed to the positive law (meaning "man-made law& and the ideas of the Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment is the era in Western philosophy and intellectual, scientific and cultural life, centered upon the eighteenth century, in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority. The political ideal of that era was expressed by the concepts of democracy, protection of property and the rule of law. That ideal required the creation of certainty of law, through the recording of law and through its uniformity. So, the aforementioned mix of Roman law and customary and local law ceased to exist, and the road opened for law codification, which could contribute to the aims of the above mentioned political ideal.

Another reason that contributed to codification was that the notion of the nation state, which was born during the 19th century^{Citation needed(possibly incorrect)}, required the recording of the law that would be applicable to that state.

Certainly, there was also reaction to the aim of law codification. The proponents of codification regarded it as conducive to certainty, unity and systematic recording of the law; whereas its opponents claimed that codification would result in the ossification of the law.

In the end, despite whatever resistance to codification, the codification of European private laws moved forward. Codifications were completed by Denmark (1687), Sweden (1734), Prussia (1794), France (1804), and Austria (1811). The French codes were imported into areas conquered by Bonaparte and later adopted with modifications in the Netherlands (1838), Italy and Romania (1865), Portugal (1867), Spain (1888), Germany (1900), and Switzerland (1912). These codifications were in turn imported into colonies at one time or another by most of these countries. The Swiss version was adopted in Brazil (1916) and Turkey (1926).

Because Germany was a rising power in the late 19th century and its legal system was well organized, when many Asian nations were developing, the German Civil Code became the basis for the legal systems of Japan and South Korea. In China, the German Civil Code was introduced in the later years of the Qing Dynasty and formed the basis of the law of the Republic of China, which remains in force in Taiwan.

Some authors consider civil law to have served as the foundation for socialist law used in Communist countries, which in this view would basically be civil law with the addition of Marxist–Leninist ideas. Even if this is so, civil law was generally the legal system in place before the rise of socialist law, and Eastern Europe reverted back to civil law following the fall of socialism.

Several legal institutions in civil law were also adapted from similar institutions in Islamic law and jurisprudence during the Middle Ages. For example, the Islamic Hawala institution is the basis of the Avallo in Italian civil law and the Aval in French civil law.^[8]

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