Common Law As A Legal System
...law¡¨ is used to refer to a type of legal system called the common law legal system. The legal systems of various countries are modeled on the English legal system and these countries are said to have a ¡§common law legal system¡¨. This includes most of the British Commonwealth and the United States. The common law legal system involves such matters as trial by jury, presumption of innocence etc. The term also denotes the fact that these said countries would have ¡§received¡¨ the English common law when they were colonized or otherwise conquered by the British Empire.
The term civil law in this context also refers to a type of legal system. Civil law countries are those countries which have legal systems or procedures modeled on the Continental European system of law. Certain Caribbean countries have a mixed common law and civil law system because of their histories. Two of these are St. Lucia which has aspects of the French Civil Code and Guyana which has remnants of Roman Dutch law.
COMMON LAW AS A SOURCE OF LAW
Common Law and Statute Law
Common law as a source of law refers to the body substantive law developed by the court over time in the decisions of various cases. This definition is based on a system of precedent which will be discussed later. Before discussing the system of precedent, it is necessary to look at the development of the English Court system. Precedent or common law in this context is also referred to case law i. e. law that developed from actual court cases.
In its early history, the English Court system involved a number of courts. These were the Curia Regis, the Court of Exchequer, the Court of King¡¦s Bench, the Court of Common Pleas, and the Court of Chancery (discussed earlier).
The Curia Regis
The development of the English Common law court system began with the Curia Regis, the king's feudal council to which he...
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