In a nutshell, legal tradition is the basis or historical root of a country’s legal system. There are two major legal traditions – the Common law and Civil law traditions. Each tradition has different source, concept, rule and development history. The adoptions of legal traditions in certain countries are largely affected by their historical background as well.
John Henry Merryman (as cited in O’Connor, 2012, p.8) defined “legal tradition” as “a set deep rooted, historically conditioned attitudes about the nature of law, about the role of law in the society…. about the proper organization and operation of a legal system, and about the way the law is or should be made, applied, studied, perfected and taught.” Merryman further differentiated
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Before the Norman Conquest, different rules and customs applied in different regions of the country. But after 1066 monarchs began to unite both the country and its laws using the king’s court. Justices created a common law by drawing on customs across the country and rulings by monarchs. These rules developed organically and were rarely written down.
Through the colonization footprints, British introduced and applied Common law to the colonies. So, Common law tradition impacts most of the Commonwealth Countries’ current legal systems. United States, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, Australia, Malaysia and Singapore are based on Common law tradition.
The Civil law tradition is the oldest and more widely used legal system but it took longer time to develop than the Common law. The Economist (2013) described the origin of Civil law tradition as follow:
European rulers drew on Roman law, and in particular a compilation of rules issued by the emperor Justinian in the 6th century that was rediscovered in 11th-century Italy. With the Enlightenment of the 18th century, rulers in various continental countries sought to produce comprehensive legal
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As the time past, custom practices and common adoptions have become compulsory and have acquired the force of a law in respect to the place or subject matter to which it relates. This community-based social regulations and dispute resolutions practices are distinct from the western-style justice system (Black 's Law Dictionary Free Online Legal Dictionary (2nd edition), 1910; O’Connor, 2012).
As a result, despite Common law and Civil law are two major legal traditions in the world (Central Intelligence Agency, 2016), we shall not simply categorize a country as a Common law or Civil law country. We shall take note on their colonization history, besides aware of the existence of hybrid or mixed legal systems and legal pluralism in some countries. Under these situations, the Common law or Civil law could be regarded as a subsystem of the wider legal systems only.
The next section will focus on the comparative study for the advantages and disadvantages of Common law and Civil law with some cases or examples to support the
MILLERSBURG — Despite a plea for leniency expressed by the victim, a Sugarcreek man was unable to overcome a long history of criminal convictions and a bond violation when a Holmes County judge on Wednesday sentenced him to prison for making unwanted phone calls and threats to several members of a family over a period of months. David Lamar Schrock, 43, of 2578 State Route 39, previously pleaded guilty in Holmes County Common Pleas Court to two counts of telephone harassment and one count of menacing by stalking. In exchange for his guilty plea, the state agreed to dismiss two additional counts of telephone harassment and three counts of menacing by stalking. The charges are made more serious because Schrock was convicted, in January 2016,
From the 13th to 15th century, liberty, justice, and equality were not very common. During this time the feudal system was already very well established. Kings ruled by divine right which meant they were appointed by God, but in 1215 the barons began to question these rights. The barons rebelled against King John and the Magna Carta soon served as a peace treaty. Many major documents in history have have used the Magna Carta’s ideology and developed them into new sets of laws pertaining to all people.
Legal history A system of rules that a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and may enforce by the imposition of penalties, this is the definition of law. Although the definition of law is evident and perceptible,the portrayal and act of law varies. Throughout the justice system there are many inconsistencies such as the type of law, there is common,criminal,civil, and administrative. Throughout these systems of law there are also criminal proceedings. In these criminal proceedings, some will find that the verdict is just.
Lawyers also decide what is relevant in court, rather than letting parties decide what they believe to be relevant. Because of this, victims lose participation in their own case. Christie also discusses the types of segmentation and their effects on modern law. I agree with Christie’s views of modern law in regards to reduced participation of parties, the presence of too many specialists, and his view on segmentation. I agree with
Magna Carta The Magna Carta, also known as the 'Great Charter ' was a significant and influential document sealed by the King of England, King John in 1215. This year marks the 800th anniversary celebration since the Magna Carta was signed in Runnymede, Surrey on June 15, 1215. This essay will discuss the historical background of the Magna Carta.
The laws of the Roman state, which were observed by subjects for about 13 centuries, from Romulus to Justinian. The laws by Justinian were said to be very strict. The law that was contained in the Corpus Juris Civilis, which is the name given to to Justinian’s legislative works and makes them different
Lastly, courts lack the resource to implement policies in line with their decisions. Thus, even when cases are won, “court decisions are often rendered useless” as litigants are left to the task of implementation (Rosenburg 21). Despite the Constrained Courts view that courts are insufficient in producing social change, “it does not deny the possibility” (Rosenburg 21). When the right factors are in place and certain conditions in favor of the case’s outcome, courts can be a powerful institution in promoting justice (Hall 2).
In strain theory, laws are equivalent to the accepted means that people can use to achieve their goals, which are described as a product of tradition and consensus. According to Frederick von Savigny, laws are “generalized statements of the tendencies actually operating, of the presuppositions on which a particular civilization is based” (Hagan 5). In this view, laws are almost indistinguishable from the commonly held morality found in a society. This theory on the nature of laws appears to match Merton’s understanding of how goals and methods of obtaining these goals are formed. An apposing theory on the creation of laws views them as a “product of conflict” (Hagan 5).
The English common law and the European Enlightment played a big role as well. The English common law epitomized the principles of natural law. “Specifically the idea that god had chosen America as a special place in his grand design. ”(Chapter 2. Pg.45)
Furthermore, from two scholarly perspectives, authors Richard Rothstein and Kitty Calavita, we can deepen our engagement with this relationship in their books, The Color of Law and Invitation to Law and Society, An Introduction
The last are the single rule makers, who create both formal and informal regulations. The first ones are set forth in the laws and statutes, while the second are unwritten and describe the opposition concerned more precisely. Rigidity and brutality of these unwritten rules depend on the personality of the warden. It fluctuates from the allowance of black market “to let off steam from the pressure-cooker” to “moonlight burials” of Gregg Stemmas or “Bread and water Norton’s diet” (22,
In the sixth century, Justinian arranged for the compilation and codification of law. This resulted in Corpus Juris Civilis, or the Institutes of Justinian. There were laws pertaining to family, property, torts, and contracts. The goal was to simplify massive amounts of legal materials. When the Institutes of Justinian came, all previous laws were disregarded.
Roman law, was effective in the Eastern Roman Empire (331-1453), and is also the basis of our legal system, civil system which most countries apply, from Europe to Latin America. Even English and North American Common law also were influenced by Roman law, particularly in the legal glossary - stare decisis, culpa in contrahendo, pacta sunt servanda. The primary document that all Roman laws were included was the Twelve Tables. This attempt was the earliest of Romans to create a Code of Law and is also the earliest (surviving) piece of literature coming from the Romans.
[5] Common law works in a different way, the judges rather than the Parliament make common law or ‘judge-made law’. Considering criminal and civil cases, the judges take decisions based on the stare decisis principle (Latin “to stand by things decided”, the legal principle of determining points in litigation according to precedent [4]), deliver rulings and create precedents, thus applying the law to real life situations. Therefore, the value of the precedent is very high in the English Common Law system. The strengths of common law
It was revealed by a survey carried out by National Consumer Council how unhappy and unsatisfactory people were with the Civil Justice System. The main weaknesses identified were that the system being too slow, too complicated for ordinary people to understand and too outdated and costly. In the continued criticism of the system Lord Woolf was appointed by the government who came up with suggestions and solutions to overcome these problems. As a result Civil Procedure Rules came into force on 26th April 1999 introducing different reforms to the system. The rationale of the reforms was to avoid litigation and promote settlement between the parties at dispute.