The Civil Law and The Common Law
Author: Admin Post Date: October 26 2011In the Western world, there are two common law traditions which we call civil and common law, although there are many others that reflect a synthesis of both systems. Common law is used to describe all those rules of law that have evolved through court cases over centuries.
The Common Law world remains extensive; it includes the Federal laws of the United States of America, and most existing or former members of the British Commonwealth, such as Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and Singapore, though in many such systems the common law influence may coexist with elements of local customary law or even with legal traditions, such as Islamic or Hindu law.
This does not mean that these countries have all developed uniform responses to particular legal problems. To survive transplanting, the Common Law system has had to respond to the different needs and conditions of each jurisdiction. This has often meant departing from the established common law rules. Such variation is seen not as a dilution of the common law custom but rather as proof of its capacity to adapt.
Courts, legislators and lawyers in the Common Law world still share a more or less common approach to legal reasoning i.e. a willingness to learn from each other. For example, it is not uncommon for judges to refer to decisions from several Common Law jurisdictions, thereby enabling them to analyze a range of potential solutions to the problem.
The system of precedent or using previous rulings to decide present cases is a time-tested principle of the Common Law system. Courts can look to each other for guidance on how to address particular cases and if all the facts are the same, pronounce the exact same judgment.
Where facts differ, previous cases are used as a point of reference to decide how to proceed further with cases. Certain cases receive the highest priority such as national interest cases while charges pertaining to ordinary citizens that are at the individual level such as a DUI case in the county of Fresno in the state of California is most likely to be sorted out in local courts with the help of a fresno dui attorney.
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