civil law

1. The body of laws of a state or nation dealing with the rights of private citizens.
2. The law of ancient Rome as embodied in the Justinian code, especially that which applied to private citizens.
3. A system of law having its origin in Roman law, as opposed to common law or canon law.

1. Roman law embodied in the Justinian Code. See also Common Law.

2. Law concerned with noncriminal matters.

3. Body of laws established by a state or nation, as distinguished from natural law.

A statutory law, as opposed to common law or judge-made law (such as case law). The Dental Practice Act is a civil law.

Has two distinct meanings. As used within the American legal system, “civil law” is noncriminal law such as the law of property, commercial law, administrative law, and the rules governing procedure in civil cases. But “civil law” also refers to a body of law distinct from common law, and that is the sense of the term that is treated here.

Civil law is the legal tradition that derives from Roman law. The civil‐law tradition developed on the continent of Europe and spread throughout the world as a byproduct of the European expansion that took place from the fifteenth through the twentieth centuries. Some of the countries whose legal systems are based on the civil‐law tradition are France, Germany, Italy, Spain, all of Latin America, and Japan. Most nations of eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union, were civil‐law jurisdictions prior to the communist era, and with the collapse of the communist bloc they may revert to that tradition. While legal systems within the civil‐law tradition differ among themselves, they are so closely related that legal scholars refer to them as members of a single civil‐law “family.”

Civil‐law systems differ from common‐law systems in the substantive content of the law, the operative procedures of the law, legal terminology, the manner in which authoritative sources of law are identified, the institutional framework within which the law is applied, and the education and structure of the legal profession.

Thus, for example, in common‐law systems, the law of contracts requires consideration for a promise, but consideration has no true analogue in civil law. In common‐law systems before the statutory reforms of the mid‐twentieth century, a seller's warranty had to be expressed in a contract of sale; it could not be implied. But in civil‐law systems, buyers have always had remedies based upon the seller's implied warranty that the goods sold possessed qualities that the buyer could presume. Other differences can be found in the law of property, the law of torts (delicts), family law, and other areas of substantive law.

Civil‐law systems depend heavily upon written codes of private law, such as the French Civil Code (Code Napoléon) of 1804 and the German Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (the “B.G.B.”) of 1900, as primary sources for authoritative statements of the law. Judicial decisions are less important than they are in common‐law jurisdictions. While a line of judicial decisions establishing a particular legal proposition (Fr., jurisprudence constante) does carry substantial weight, the common‐law rule of binding precedent (Lat., stare decisis) is not recognized in traditional civil‐law systems.

Because post‐Roman civil law developed in the medieval universities of Italy and France rather than in courts of law as in England, the civil law gives greater authority to the writings of legal academicians and scholars than does the common law, which continues to emphasize the law in practice as it is developed case by case in written decisions of appellate courts.

Within the United States and its territories, only three jurisdictions are considered civil‐law systems—Louisiana, Puerto Rico, and Guam—but because of the strong influence of common law in these jurisdictions, they are really “mixed systems” of civil and common law. Under the Supreme Court's ruling in Erie v. Tompkins (1938), Louisiana courts are the final authority on matters involving issues of civil law under the Louisiana Code of 1870. Similarly, courts in Puerto Rico and Guam have responsibility for the development of the civil law in those island jurisdictions.

Civil law is usually of tangential concern to the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices of the Supreme Court are products of the American common‐law tradition, and, with few exceptions, they have not been familiar with civil‐law sources or methods. Nevertheless, with the growth of international private law, the expanding commercial importance of the European Union and Japan, and increasing contacts among legal practitioners and legal elites across national boundaries, the Supreme Court will have to come to terms with the civil law tradition, the most widespread and important legal tradition in the modern world.

Bibliography

• John E. C. Brierly and René David, Major Legal Systems in the World Today: An Introduction to the Competitive Study of Law, 3d ed. (1985).
• John H. Merryman, The Civil Law Tradition: An Introduction to the Legal Systems of Western Europe and Latin America (1969)

— George Dargo

For more information on civil law, visit Britannica.com.

The term has two meanings:

1. It is used as synonymous with Roman law, which was accepted in most of the countries of Europe. With the fall of the Roman empire, the Roman or civil law which survived was heavily influenced by custom. Thus Roman law came to have two aspects—the pure classical Roman law and the bastardized Roman customary law which applied in the many barbarian and post-barbarian societies of western Europe.

English law was undoubtedly influenced by civil law, though it never ‘received’ or adopted Roman law. There was little evidence of survival of Roman law from the Roman occupation of Britain, but the Norman Conquest brought England close to continental traditions, especially through the influence of canon law. The author of Glanvill clearly had a sound grounding in Roman law, though the book makes it clear that English law is by no means the same. Bracton is commonly acknowledged to be heavily influenced by Roman law. But civil law was never a serious threat to the common law in England.
2. The other meaning of civil law is as distinct from criminal—i.e. the law relating to the adjustment of legal disputes between individuals. The common law was mainly civil law since the work of the courts of common law was primarily the development of the writ system to enable individuals to litigate in the king's courts.

Within the legal system of the United States, civil law is a body of law pertaining to noncriminal private disputes among individuals, corporations, and governments. Thus, civil law is distinguished from criminal law, which deals with the enforcement of the laws against those accused of violating them. In a civil action, one private party takes legal action against another private party to seek relief in a court of law for an alleged wrong.

See also Criminal law

Legal system derived from the Roman Corpus Juris Civilus of Emperor Justinian I; differs from a common-law system, which relies on prior decisions to determine the outcome of a lawsuit. Most European and South American countries have a civil law system. England and most of the countries it dominated or colonized, including Canada and the United States, have a common-law system. However, within these countries, Louisiana, Quebec, and Puerto Rico exhibit the influence of French and Spanish settlers in their use of civil law systems. A body of rules that delineate private rights and remedies and govern disputes between individuals in such areas as contracts, property, and family law; distinct from criminal or public law.

In the United States, the term civil law has two meanings. One meaning of civil law refers to a legal system prevalent in Europe that is based on written codes. Civil law in this sense is contrasted with the common-law system used in England and most of the United States, which relies on prior case law to resolve disputes rather than written codes. The second meaning of civil law refers to the body of laws governing disputes between individuals, as opposed to those governing offenses against the government — that is, civil law as opposed to criminal law.

Civil law systems, which trace their roots to ancient Rome, are governed by doctrines developed and compiled by legal scholars. Legislators and administrators in civil law countries use these doctrines to fashion a code by which all legal controversies are decided.

In France, the civil law is set forth in the comprehensive French Civil Code of 1804, also known as the Code Napoléon. France exported this legal system to the New World when it settled Louisiana in 1712. When the French ceded Louisiana to Spain in 1762, the new Spanish governor replaced French civil law with Spanish civil law. France regained control of the territory in 1803 and the United States purchased it a mere twenty days later. During that brief period of French rule, the French prefect abolished all Spanish courts but did not reintroduce French law. Hence, the new U.S. governor of Louisiana, William Claiborne, took control of a territory that lacked a legal system.

Determined to Americanize Louisiana, Claiborne attempted to impose common law but met fierce resistance from Louisianans who had grown accustomed to their mixture of French and Spanish laws and culture. Realizing that he would not be able to mandate a common law system, he directed the state's legislature to draft a civil code based on existing law. Louisiana's first civil code, enacted in 1808, drew heavily from the Code Napoléon and was even written in French. It was replaced in 1825 by a more comprehensive and detailed code. Finally, the Louisiana Civil Code, enacted in 1870 and still largely in force, clarifies and simplifies the earlier laws. The 1870 code is written in English, signaling a shift toward a partial Americanization of Louisiana's legal culture. To this day, Louisiana enjoys the distinction of being the only state in the United States to have a civil law system rather than a common-law system.

The first article of the Louisiana Civil Code reads: "The sources of law are legislation and custom" (LA C.C. Art. 1.). This means that judges in Louisiana are obligated to look first to written laws for guidance in reaching their decisions. If no statute directly governs the dispute, judges may base their decisions on established custom. Article 3 defines custom as a "practice repeated for a long time and generally accepted as having acquired the force of law." However, article 3 makes it clear that custom may not abrogate or conflict with legislation. Hence, Louisiana judges do not make law with their decisions; rather, the code charges them with interpreting, as closely as possible, what has been written and passed by the legislature or long established by custom.

Louisiana judges, unlike their common-law counterparts, are not bound by judicial precedent. Common-law judges adhere to the doctrine of stare decisis, which mandates that the outcome of a lawsuit be governed by previous decisions in similar cases. Louisiana's civil code does not recognize the binding force of precedent. However, under the civil law doctrine of jurisprudence constante, or settled jurisprudence, judges are expected to follow a series of decisions that agree on the interpretation of a code provision.

Although Louisiana is generally called a civil law state, its code is imbued with some common- law features, making it a hybrid of the two traditions. The state's constitution, administrative and criminal law, civil and criminal procedure, and rules of evidence all contain elements derived from common-law principles. As a result, Louisiana judges operate under administrative rules that differ from those found in other civil law jurisdictions. For example, whereas European judges actively elicit the facts in a controversy and seldom use a jury, Louisiana judges operate more like their common-law colleagues, assuming the role of neutral and passive fact finder or arbiter, and leaving the final decision to a jury. Oral argument is generally absent in a pure civil law proceeding, whereas Louisiana's procedural and evidentiary rules allow oral presentations, resulting in trials that are closer to those found in a common-law court. Finally, European courts allow almost unlimited discovery by the accused in a lawsuit, whereas Louisiana's procedural and evidentiary rules place certain restrictions on such discovery.

Civil law systems differ from common-law systems in another important way: in a common-law jurisdiction, appellate courts, in most instances, may review only findings of law. However, civil law appellate courts may review findings of fact as well as findings of law. This allows a Louisiana appellate court to declare a jury's decision erroneous, impose its own findings of fact, and possibly even reduce a damage award. This is a significant consideration for a plaintiff who has a choice of whether to file suit in Louisiana or in another state (to bring suit in a particular state, a plaintiff must demonstrate some relationship between that state and the lawsuit). Since a jury award could be overturned on appeal, the plaintiff with a strong case may wish to file in a common-law state. On the other hand, if the plaintiff is uncertain of success at the trial level, the possibility of broader review on appeal may make Louisiana the better choice. As a practical matter, such dilemmas arise infrequently, and most often involve complex multistate litigation concerning corporations.

See: Napoleonic Code; Roman Law.

The form of law which is conducted inquisitorially with the judge asking all of the questions and deciding the outcome. The basis of European law. The opposite to English law, which is adversarial in its approach.

Look up civil law in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Civil law may refer to:

• Civil law (legal system), a system of law based on the Corpus Juris Civilis
• Civil law (area), a branch of continental law which is the general part of private law
• Civil law (common law), a branch of common law dealing with disputes between individuals or organizations (as opposed to criminal law)
• Secular or civil law; law that is not religious law
• law that is not military law or martial law

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