The Civil Law and the Common Law: Some of the Similarities and Differences between the Two Systems

1978 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-133
Author(s):  
James F. Bailey

Comparative law has a long history, and it has long been a tradition among legal scholars to compare one legal system with others. Even in the days when Rome ruled the so-called “known world”, there were other legal systems which existed either with the Roman Empire, side-by-side with the Roman jus civilis, or outside the Empire in the German tribes, in the Parthian Empire, among the Celts, and so forth. Law is the element which regulates and harmonizes human activity, behavior, and endeavor within any ordered society, primitive or advanced, and few if any societies could exist for long without some sort of law and legal system. Law is therefore part of the culture, the daily life, behavior, civilization, and yes, even the history of a people and their civilization. Unless a civilization or folk-group is a carbon copy of another, then it is normal to expect differences in the manner in which rights are vindicated, differences resolved, and an orderly solution found for the conflicts in human life.

Author(s):  
Joshua Getzler

This chapter investigates the idea of doctrine as a focus of historical scholarship, asking how the doctrinal mentality arose, and how historical approaches to doctrine emerged strongly in both common-law and civilian or Romanistic legal cultures. It first defines the meaning of ‘doctrine’, and sets out a guiding thesis. It argues that an important dimension of doctrine is communication; and jurists become fascinated by the history of doctrine when social and political conditions necessitate an expansion or transfer of the legal system, with concomitant transfers of doctrinal thought. The chapter then traces the development of doctrinal history from Gaius to the common law tradition.


Author(s):  
Michael J. Broyde

This chapter focuses on the premodern use of religious courts to resolve ecclesiastical disputes within Western societies. Religious arbitration is by no means a new mechanism. It dates back hundreds of years. Societal acceptance of religious courts operating within the broader secular legal system is thus deeply ingrained in the Western tradition and in the common-law tradition that formed the bedrock of American jurisprudence. The history of religious arbitration in Western societies is important because it helps contextualize and explain long-standing social, political, and legal comfort with religious groups engaging in various forms of alternative dispute resolution separate but not entirely outside societal laws. However, although its deep historical roots indicate that religious arbitration has stood the test of time, various practices and experiences associated with early forms of religious dispute resolution have led many people to become skeptical and wary of its place in modern secular societies.


Author(s):  
Asasriwarnia Asasriwarnia ◽  
M. Jandra

This paper will discuss the comparison of Islamic legal system, civil law, and common law. Knowing the comparison is important. This method is very appropriate considering that the legal system has its own character and scope. The questions of this study are: (1) how is the comparison concept of legal systems; (2) how was the comparison of legal systems’ source; (3) how was the comparison of its history and (4) the comparative material of law content. The purpose of this study is to reveal the concepts of legal systems comparison; the comparison of its source, history and the material comparison of law system’s content. This study use normative legal method. The results of this study are: (1) the concept of legal system comparison is defined by the similarities and difference on the collection of law elements. The needs of legal systems comparison are grouped into scientific needs and practical needs; (2) the comparison of legal system source is that the source of Islamic legal system, civil law, and common law has similarity in the effort of legal discovery. (3) The comparison of the history of legal system have similarities in growth and development influenced by the traditions of human life from one generation to the next generation in wide definition. (4) Comparison of the content of law system have similarities that all aspects of human life is generally regulated by law. In this context Islamic law is comprehensively regulate various aspects of human life including the relationship with the universe, the Lord and the hereafter.


2011 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helge Dedek

Every legal system that ties judicial decision making to a body of preconceived norms has to face the tension between the normative formulation of the ideal and its approximation in social reality. In the parlance of the common law, it is, more concretely, the remedy that bridges the gap between the ideal and the real, or, rather, between norms and facts. In the common law world—particularly in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth—a lively discourse has developed around the question of how rights relate to remedies. To the civilian legal scholar—used to thinking within a framework that strictly categorizes terms like substance and procedure, subjective right, action, and execution—the concept of remedy remains a mystery. The lack of “remedy” in the vocabulary of the civil law is more than just a matter of attaching different labels to functional equivalents, it is the expression of a different way of thinking about law. Only if a legal system is capable of satisfactorily transposing the abstract discourse of the law into social reality does the legal machinery fulfill its purpose: due to the pivotal importance of this translational process, the way it is cast in legal concepts thus allows for an insight into the deep structure of a legal culture, and, convergence notwithstanding, the remaining epistemological differences between the legal traditions of the West. A mixed jurisdiction must reflect upon these differences in order to understand its own condition and to define its future course.


1977 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 373
Author(s):  
J. L. Barton ◽  
A. W. B. Simpson ◽  
S. J. Stoljar
Keyword(s):  

1971 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. H. Baker

Slade's Case is of such significance in the history of the common law that it has, quite properly, been the subject of more scrutiny and discussion in recent years than any other case of the same age. The foundation of all this discussion has been Coke's report, which is the only full report in print. The accuracy and completeness of Coke's version have hardly been challenged, and the discussions have assumed that it contains almost all there is to know about the case. This assumption must be discarded if we are to understand the contemporary significance of the case.


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