Law of the Philippines

The Philippines has a mixed legal system combining civil law and common law traditions, the product of successive Spanish and American colonial administrations. Private law areas, including civil law, family law and property law, remain grounded in the Spanish civil law tradition and are codified in the Civil Code of the Philippines of 1950, while criminal procedure, corporate law, and the overall structure and reasoning style of the courts reflect the American common law influence introduced during the period of United States administration in the first half of the twentieth century, including significant reliance on judicial precedent in constitutional interpretation. In the Bangsamoro region and other Muslim majority areas of Mindanao, the Code of Muslim Personal Laws applies Islamic law to marriage, divorce and inheritance for Filipino Muslims, and customary law is recognized among indigenous communities in specific contexts. The Supreme Court sits at the head of the judiciary and exercises the power of judicial review under the 1987 Constitution.