What is the legal system?
A legal system is surrounded by legal principles, rules and norms to protect and promote secure living for its subjects in a cultural society. It recognized rights and direct duties for the people and laid out the way and means to enforcement of the same. The major legal system of the world is divided into three broad categories.
Major Legal System:
ROMANO-GERMANIC FAMILY/ CIVIL LAW SYSTEM
COMMON LAW FAMILY/ COMMON LAW SYSTEM
FAMILY OF SOCIALIST/ SOCIALIST LAW SYSTEM
OTHER LEGAL SYSTEMS
Romano-Germanic family-:
The Romano-Germanic Legal System, also known as Civil Law or Civilian Law, is a legal system originating in Europe and intellectualized with the framework of late Roman law. It was founded by the scholarly efforts of European universities from the 12th century and based on the collection of the emperor Justinian (A.D. 483-565),
This system evolved and developed common to all and adapted to the condition of the modern world. Juridical science is common to all and adapted to the conditions of the modern world. Thus, the Romano-Germanic family reflects the joint efforts of the universities from Latin and Germanic countries in which the legal system has developed based on the Roman principle, jus civile, which means citizens’ law.
Through colonization by European nations, the Romano-Germanic family has conquered vast territories where the legal systems belong or are related to this family.
Salient features of the ROMANO GERMANIC FAMILY/ CIVIL LAW SYSTEM;
The rule of law is envisaged as a rule of conduct which are intimately linked to ideas of justice and morality,
Law has developed as a means of regulating private relationships between individuals;
Here, various member countries have attached special importance to enacted legislation in the form of codes (systematic collection of law)
It spread throughout the world following colonization and was adopted due to convenience
Common law family -:
A second family is that of the Common law, including the law of England and those laws modelled on English law.
The Common Law, altogether different in its characteristics from the Romano-Germanic family, was formed primarily by judges who had to resolve specific disputes. The origins of the Common law are linked to royal power.
It was developed as a system in those cases where the peace of the English kingdom was threatened or when some other important consideration required or justified the intervention of royal power.
Salient features of the common law family;
The common law system seeks to provide the solution to a trial rather than formulate a general rule of conduct for the future like the Romano-Germanic family.
Here, matters relating to the administration of justice, procedure, evidence and execution of judgement are given more importance, equal to or greater than the substantive legal rules, because the focus has been to re-establish peace in society rather than articulate a moral basis for the social order.
The origin of the common law was linked to royal power. It was developed as a system in cases where the peace of the English kingdom was threatened or when some other important consideration required or justified the intervention of royal power.
It’s essentially a public law for resolving disputes between private individuals that did not fall within the purview of the common law courts, save to the extent they involved the interest of the crown.
It was also spread by colonization and was voluntarily adopted due to convenience.
Family of socialist laws-:
The family of socialist laws originated in the union of the Soviet socialist republic, where these ideas prevailed, and a new law developed since the 1917 revolution. However, the laws of the socialist or People’s Republic of Europe and Asia must be classed as a group distinct from soviet law.
The laws belong to the socialist family. To date, the members of the socialist camp are those countries that formerly belonged to the Romano-Germanic family and have preserved some of the characteristics of Romano-Germanic law.
The originality of Socialist law is particularly evident because of its revolutionary nature; in opposition to the somewhat static character of Romano-Germanic laws, the proclaimed ambition of socialist jurists is to overturn society and create the condition of a new social order in which the very concept of state and law will disappear.
Salient features of the family of socialist laws-;
It aims to change the concept of state and laws radically. The proclaimed ambition of socialist jurists is to overturn society and create a new social order in which the very concept of state and law will disappear.
The source of socialist rules of law resides within the revolutionary work of the legislature, which expressed popular will, narrowly guided by the communist party. Here, legal as such is not principally counted upon to create the new order.
Here, the law is strictly subordinate to the task of creating a new economic structure.
Private law is less relevant in this family due to vast socio-economic reforms since all means of production are collectivized. As a result, the field of possible private law relationships between citizens is limited. Thus, private law has lost its pre-eminence, and all law has now become public law.
Eastern European countries that adopted or were forced to adopt this system preserved more features of the Romano-Germanic family. Still, some Asian countries combined it with their own legal system.
The other legal system-:
The Far East Legal Systems -; Far Eastern countries reject this view. For the Chinese, law is an instrument of arbitrary action rather than the symbol of Justice; it contributes to social disorder rather than social order. The good citizen must not concern himself with the law; he should live in a way which excludes thoughts of his rights or any recourse to the justice of courts. The Chinese communist regime and the westernization of Japan have not fundamentally changed this conception rooted in their ancient civilizations. Codes on the European model have been instituted in Japan, but the people make little use of them; people abstain from using the courts, and the courts themselves encourage litigants to resort to reconciliation. And new techniques have been developed for applying or removing the need to apply the law.
Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish Laws-;
In Muslim countries, more attention is given to the model law linked to the Islamic religion than to local customs or the laws and decrees of the sovereign. Neither of these is thought to possess the full dignity of law. The same can be said of Jewish law and Hindu law in a very different context. Muslim and Hindu law, therefore, must be included within the major contemporary legal systems. Jewish law, Despite its historical and philosophical interest, must be omitted because its sphere of influence is incomparably less than that of the other two. In the Islamic and Hindu communities, law is held to be a necessary part of, indeed a basis for, society.
Black Africa and the Malagasy Republic
The preceding observations regarding the Far East also apply to the black African countries and the Malagasy Republic (Madagascar). Even though Western laws adopted in Africa are often hard, the vast majority of the population still lives according to traditional ways, which do not comprise what the West calls law but rating it as nothing more than an artificially implanted body of rules.
