Legal System

Civil Law

Also Known As Continental Law

Civil Law Family

Civil law is a legal system in which comprehensive written codes, rather than judicial precedent, are the primary source of law, with courts interpreting and applying the code rather than making binding law of their own. The tradition traces its intellectual roots to ancient Roman law, especially its sixth century compilation under the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, the Corpus Juris Civilis, rediscovered and studied intensively in medieval European universities from the eleventh century onward, and took its modern codified form in the national civil codes enacted across Europe from the early nineteenth century, most influentially the Napoleonic Code of 1804. It is the most widespread legal system in the world today by number of jurisdictions, covering most of continental Europe, Latin America, and large parts of Africa and Asia.

Facts

Disputed

Origin Year

1804 2

1804, the enactment of the Napoleonic Code, is taken here as the origin of the modern codified civil law tradition, since it was the model most widely adopted or adapted by other nations. The tradition intellectual roots are far older, tracing to Roman law and particularly to Justinian own sixth century Corpus Juris Civilis, so which date counts as origin depends on whether the Roman legal inheritance or its modern codified form is meant.

Example Jurisdictions

France, Germany, Italy, Spain, most of continental Europe, Latin America, and large parts of Africa and Asia. 2

Primary Source of Law

Comprehensive written codes and statutes, with case law playing a secondary, interpretive role. 3

Classification

Legal Family

Civil Law 1

Civil Law

7 entries

Role

Nationality or Jurisdiction

Field of Law

Gender

Court Served On

Connections

Showing the first 400 of 437 connections.

Includes

Obrogation

Source Obrogation (Wikipedia)

Odofredus

Orlando Aguirre Gómez

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Costa Rica, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Oscar Cruz Oliva

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Guatemala, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Oscar Manuel Silvera Martinez

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Cuba, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Paola Prudencio Candia

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Bolivia, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Patricius (jurist)

Patrimony of affectation

Source Patrimony of affectation (Wikipedia)

Paulus de Castro

Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2)

European Union directive, applied across member states whose domestic systems are predominantly civil law.

Source Major Legal Systems in the World TodayRene David and John E.C. Brierley

Pedro Hernández Chávez

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Peru, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL)

Comparative law generally classifies contemporary Chinese law as a socialist legal system within the broader civil-law family, developed by legislative codification rather than common-law judicial precedent.

Source Personal Information Protection Law of the People's Republic of China (Wikipedia)

Philippe Bas

Source Central Intelligence Agency: France, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Placentinus

Plotius Pegasus

Portuguese Civil Code

Precedent (Stare Decisis)

Civil law courts follow jurisprudence constante, a settled line of decisions expected to be followed in the ordinary course, but are not doctrinally bound to a single prior decision the way stare decisis binds a common law court.

Source Stare Decisis (Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School)

Presumption of Innocence

Named here for its documented Roman law and French Revolutionary lineage, the doctrine own historical origin point. It is equally recognized in common law systems, where it is treated as a foundational right of criminal procedure.

Source Major Legal Systems in the World TodayRene David and John E.C. Brierley

Proportionality

Originated in German civil law administrative and constitutional doctrine and remains most fully developed there and across the EU's civil law member states; increasingly adopted in common law judicial review as well, notably in the United Kingdom.

Source The Oxford Handbook of Comparative LawMathias Reimann and Reinhard Zimmermann, editors

Publius Orbius

REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals)

Source REACH, Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 (EUR-Lex)

Rebeca Raquel Obando

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Honduras, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Rechtsstaat

Source Rechtsstaat (Wikipedia)

Rhona Fetzer

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Germany, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

RoHS Directive

European Union directive, applied across member states whose domestic systems are predominantly civil law.

Source Major Legal Systems in the World TodayRene David and John E.C. Brierley

Rok Čeferin

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Slovenia, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Rustam Mirzozoda

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Tajikistan, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Saisine

Source Saisine (Wikipedia)

Separation of Powers

Montesquieu wrote within the French civil law tradition; many civil law constitutions adopt an explicit tripartite structure influenced by his formulation.

Source Montesquieu (Wikipedia)

Servitude in civil law

Source Servitude in civil law (Wikipedia)

Sextus Pedius

Sigrid Emmenegger

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Germany, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Solvency II Directive

European Union directive, applied across member states whose domestic systems are predominantly civil law.

Source Major Legal Systems in the World TodayRene David and John E.C. Brierley

South Korea Conscientious Objection Case (2018)

Source An Introduction to Comparative LawKonrad Zweigert and Hein Koetz; English translation by Tony Weir

South Korean Civil Code

Spanish Civil Code

Spanish Constitution of 1978

Spanish Constitutional Court

Supreme Court of Djibouti

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Djibouti, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Supreme Court of Georgia

Source World Factbook archive, Georgia profile

Supreme Court of Guinea

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Guinea, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Supreme Court of Honduras

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Honduras, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador

Source Central Intelligence Agency: El Salvador, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Supreme Court of Justice of Equatorial Guinea

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Equatorial Guinea, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Supreme Court of Justice of Nicaragua

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Nicaragua, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Supreme Court of Justice of Zaire

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Democratic Republic of the Congo, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Supreme Court of Kyrgyzstan

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Kyrgyzstan, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Supreme Court of Liechtenstein

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Liechtenstein, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Supreme Court of Madagascar

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Madagascar, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Supreme Court of Mali

Source Central Intelligence Agency: Mali, The World Factbook (factbook.json archive copy)

Showing 251 to 300 of 332 in Includes, page 6 of 7.

Held Differently

Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU)

Why this is disputed. The CJEU is a supranational court whose case law draws heavily on continental civil law method and whose member states are mostly civil law jurisdictions, but EU law itself is often described by comparative scholars as a distinct legal order rather than a member of any single one of the five traditions; the civil law classification here reflects the Court's dominant working method, not a claim that EU law is simply continental civil law.

Source The Oxford Handbook of Comparative LawMathias Reimann and Reinhard Zimmermann, editors

Habeas Corpus

Civil law systems generally provide analogous judicial protection against arbitrary detention through differently named procedures rather than through habeas corpus as such.

Source Habeas Corpus (Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School)

Judicial Review

Civil law jurisdictions generally exercise constitutional review through a single dedicated constitutional court rather than diffusing it across the ordinary judiciary as the United States does, a different account of the same underlying power rather than a rejection of it.

Mens Rea

Civil law systems reach a broadly comparable result through the distinct concepts of dol (intent) and culpa (fault) rather than through mens rea as such, a different account of criminal culpability rather than a rejection of it.

Source Mens Rea (Wikipedia)

M'Naghten Rules

Civil law systems generally excuse a mentally disordered defendant through their own non-responsibility provisions (for example Article 122-1 of the French Penal Code), a differently framed doctrine reaching a broadly similar result rather than the M'Naghten test itself.

Source M'Naghten Rules (Wikipedia)

Rule of Law

Civil law systems generally express the rule of law through the Rechtsstaat tradition and codified principles of legality rather than through the common law rule of law as such.

Legal Family Of

Judicial system of the United Arab Emirates