Civil law is a legal system that deals with the private affairs of citizens, such as marriage and property, rather than criminal matters. It is a branch of law that is rooted in the Roman Empire and has been codified and disseminated comprehensively since the 19th century. Unlike common law systems, which rely heavily on judicial precedent, civil law systems are based on legal codes that serve as the primary source of law. Today, civil law is the most common legal system in the world and is practiced in approximately 150 countries. It is both a legal system and a branch of law.
In the United States, civil law refers to court cases that arise between two non-governmental parties. In contrast, most Western European states have a civil law system. In the United States, civil law is the legal branch that covers private rights, rather than crimes. This means that if your neighbor decides to sue you because your dog barks constantly, it would be a matter of civil law. Civil law is based on a mixture of Roman, Germanic, church, feudal, commercial, and customary law. It has been adopted in much of Latin America, as well as parts of Asia and Africa.
It must be distinguished from the customary law of Anglo-American countries. Civil law applies to almost all disputes between individuals or entities. This includes housing cases such as eviction or foreclosure, family cases such as divorce or custody, consumer issues such as debt or bankruptcy, and lawsuits for property or personal damage. The term "civil law" was coined by English legal scholars and is used in English-speaking countries to refer to all legal systems within the jus commune tradition. A lawyer specializing in common law would consult the original code but would use the most recent case law to support their argument. Civil law is a popular way of structuring legal systems around broad codes and detailed statutes that determine the rights and obligations of individuals.
It does not rely heavily on precedents, courts, judges, and juries, as in common law countries. For Japan's legal system, which began in the Meiji era, European legal systems, particularly the civil law of Germany and France, served as the main models of emulation. Conceptually, civil law starts from abstractions, formulates general principles, and distinguishes substantive rules from procedural rules. This is in contrast to the common law system, which originated in medieval England. The approach an attorney takes when practicing in each system highlights the difference between these bodies of law. The Napoleonic codifications of private and criminal law in France, particularly the civil code of 1804 (also known as the Napoleonic Code), gained great fame and influence thanks to their promoter's personality and innovative applied technique.
It was first received in the Holy Roman Empire because it was considered imperial law and spread throughout Europe because its students were the only trained lawyers. Civil law systems, also known as continental or Roman-Germanic legal systems, are found on every continent and cover approximately 60% of the world. Examples of cases covered by civil law include negligence, fraud, breach of contract, medical negligence, and dissolution of marriage. Among the many aspects that contributed to the complex pattern of medieval law, the customs of merchants and the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church were particularly important. Rather than being a compendium of laws or a catalog of case law, the code establishes general principles as rules of law. Some monarchs consolidated their kingdoms by attempting to collect customary rules that would serve as national law for their kingdoms. For example, Charles VII of France commissioned the official enactment of Corona legislation in 1454. Due to the different dates of codification and the different style and attitude of legal learning, the civil law family is divided into the French (or Romanist) branch and the German (or Germanic) branch. However, given the influence of the empire on the continent in Late Antiquity and the multiple incursions and occupations by Western European powers in the late Middle Ages, its laws were widely applied in the West.
