Law of Libya

Libyan law is a mixed system combining Islamic sharia, civil law and customary law, shaped historically by Ottoman, French, Italian and Egyptian influences. Under Ottoman rule civil law rested on the Majallat al-Ahkam al-Adliyah, and the adoption of Napoleonic Code principles influenced commercial practice, an influence later extended by Italian colonial administration from 1911 to 1943. During the federal monarchy of the 1950s, jurist Abd El-Razzak El-Sanhuri drafted a new Civil Code in 1954 based on French and Italian civil law that also recognized sharia and Arab custom as sources of law, while a dual court system applied Maliki school sharia to personal status matters. Contemporary Libyan law still combines sharia, chiefly of the Maliki school, civil codes shaped by European models and customary law, though the system retains significant authoritarian features, including provisions from the 1953 penal code and the death penalty, despite periodic reform efforts.