Surveys of the Legal Systems in the United States
Religious and secular legal systems
There is one great division between the religious and secular legal systems. There are few countries whose legal system is exclusively religious, while a number of countries have ‘dual’ systems in which religious rules govern, and religious courts adjudicate on, such matters as marriage, divorce, family relationships and possibly family property, while a secular system with state courts covers the wider fields of public and commercial law. This was the position in England until the 1850s, and is the case today in Israel, India, and Pakistan, while in some African countries these more private areas are ruled by local ethnic and religious custom.
Classification into Common Law and Civil Law
Common law and civil law are the two prominent legal systems in the Western world. In summary, “common law” is the law created by judges on a case by case basis and civil law is the law created by a civil authority to be applied to all cases (such as a statute or constitution).
What is confusing is the wording: there is civil law, the body or field of law (which address disputes between individuals), as opposed to Civil Law, the system of law. For example, in the United States, the Common Law is what develops the civil law (as a body of law) of each state.
In the United States, there are forty-nine U.S. states which adopt a common law system while one state, Louisiana, using a civil law system (because of its french history).
Classification of the bodies of Law
Law may be classified into two main bodies:
- Criminal law; mainly deals with the state .i.e. the constitutional law, procedure law, administrative law, etc.
- Civil law; mainly deals with individuals. It is also known as Private law.
Civil law is further classified into different fields (or laws):
- Law of Property
- Law of Succession
- Law of Trusts
- Law of Contract
- Law of Tort
The Foundational Documents of the American Legal System
This is a list of legal documents that have formed the foundation of the American legal system:
- Magna Carta (1215)
- Mayflower Compact (1620)
- The Declaration of Independence (1776)
- The Articles of Confederation (1777)
- The Treaty of Paris (1783)
- The Northwest Ordinance of 1787
- The Consitution of the United States (1787)
- The Bill of Rights (1791)
See Also
- American Legal Systems: A Resource and Reference Guide
- Dual Court Systems
- Religious law
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