Common Law Vs Civil Law System

Common Law system Vs. Civil Law system

The civil law system and the common law system are indeed two diverse legal systems. Most countries nowadays go with one of the two main legal structures: common law or civil law . Before starting the comparison of those two major legal system, we need to know what is law and why is it important to us. Law has many diverse definitions, but they are all based on the same perception which is the comprehension of enforceable guidelines that guides the relationship between people themselves and between people and society they live in. Law is important to us because it simply tells us what are our roles and obligations toward our society and other individuals . To begin the comparison between the main two

The main source for the civil law system consist of: Constitution, legislation “statutes and subsidiary”, customary, international law and judicial precedents and conventions. For the common law system sources, it contain: Constitution (not in the UK), legislation “statutes and subsidiary legislation”, judicial precedent “common law and equity”, custom, convention and international Law . Basically, common law frameworks make reference to statute law, case law or judicial precedents and for the civil law statutes and other subsidiary legislations are the main sources for laws

For the civil law countries, judges are often described as “investigators.” They generally take the lead in the proceedings by bringing charges, establishing facts through witness examination and applying remedies found in legal codes .on the other hand, in the common system judges make a choice in the matters of law and when a jury is absent, they also collect facts. As a common law systems are adversarial, the judge is understood to be a neutral party . When it comes to court cases, judges in civil-law systems are more like investigators, while their equivalents in the common-law systems are rather arbiters between parties presenting arguments

Moreover, where is each law method implemented? For the civil law case, it is wide-spread in Europe plus some countries from Asia. (Ex: China, Japan, Germany, France, and Spain). In the case of common law, countries like The United States, England, India and Canada. Civil law covers countries that are mainly located in Europe, while the common law covers English speaking countries .

Lastly, in the modern days the difference between common and civil legal principles lies in the actual source of law. Common-law systems make refer extensively to statutes, but judicial cases are considered the most important source of law, allowing judges to pro-actively contribute to rules. While in civil-law systems on the other hand, codes and statutes are designed to cover all