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

Abstract

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.