What does it mean that Scotland is a civil law jurisdiction? I have learnt recently that Scotland is a civil law jurisdiction (when it comes to private law at least), but one that doesn't have a civil code. I have also been taught that the main difference between common law and civil law is that common law uses a primarily bottom-up approach in which one starts from the facts of a case and works their way up to precedents, whereas civil law uses a primarily top-down approach in which one starts from the law and works their way down to the various situations that can arise. With this in mind, I find it difficult to understand how civil law can be applied without a civil code. How does it work in practice?
Both civil law and common law have civil codes, so that isn't the difference. It is common in civil law jurisdictions for these to be called civil codes and consolidated into the great big book of law. In common law jurisdictions, the civil code is scattered through legislation, regulation, administrative and case law and often not consolidated although, each piece of legislation typically deals with only one (or a related number) of topics. Adversarial vs Inquisitorial In a common law jurisdiction, the role of the judge/jury is to decide the dispute that the parties have brought to the court based solely on the arguments and evidence that they make. A judge who seeks their own evidence or decides the case based on a law the parties have not argued is making a mistake. The judge is free to say to the parties "But what about xyz law?" and let them make an argument about that but they would be denying the parties natural justice if they decided the case on xyz law if that law was not argued. In civil law jurisdiction, the role of the judge/jury is to find out the truth. They have inquisitorial power and decide the case based on all the evidence, the law that was argued and their own knowledge of the law. Precedence In common law jurisdictions, the cases decided by the courts are just as much the law of the land as the acts passed by parliament. When a court hands down a decision on a certain fact pattern, then all courts lower in the hierarchy must make the same decision when presented by a similar fact pattern. These are binding precedents. In addition, decisions of same level or lower courts (where not actually the ones being appealed) as well as decisions in "parallel" jurisdictions are persuasive precedents. A parallel jurisdiction is anything where the law is close enough that it makes sense to use it: Australian courts will tend to look first to other Australian states, then to England &amp; Wales, Canada, New Zealand and other Commonwealth countries then the United States of America and then to civil law jurisdictions. There is nothing nativist in this, it is just that these are the jurisdictions where the laws are "closest" to one another: partly because the courts have historically done this (which tends to lock the common law together), partly because there has been governmental will in creating harmonized laws in Australia (i.e. enacted in each state and territory but essentially the same law - often word for word) and partly because parliaments, when drafting legislation, nick ideas from other parliaments. If the Supreme Court of Western Australia has made a decision on a similar fact pattern under a similar law, a District Court judge in New South Wales had better have some damn good reasons for deciding this case differently but they wouldn't automatically be wrong if they did. However, if the precedent had been set in the Supreme Court of New South Wales than the District Court judge would be wrong to decide differently. Naturally, a lot of argument in common law courts is about why the facts of this case are sufficiently similar/distinct that the precedent should/shouldn't apply. Also, common law judgments emphasize the reasoning that led the judge from the evidence to the conclusion and include detailed analysis of the case each party presented - this is because they need to be understandable to a wide audience. Court hierarchy can be quite complex, this is the one for NSW, Australia: In a civil law jurisdiction, courts are not bound by the rules of precedence - each judgement is a first principles analysis of the facts and the law. This is not to say that civil law judges do not use other judgments in their analysis but they are not required to do so. Broadly speaking, the common law approach promotes consistency, the civil law approach promotes individualized justice.
International law is always subordinate to domestic law. In the Westphalian world we live in, all power rests with each and every Sovereign nation. International law is a creation of those nations and only has force where the affected nation acquiesces to it. For example, the US and Russia have refused to sign up to the International Criminal Court so that court has no jurisdiction in their territory or over their citizens. North Korea has refused to sign the Berne convention so there is no protection of foreign copyright there. Similarly, a nation, having entered a treaty, can revoke that treaty. There would be consequences but these would be geo-political, not legal. Of course nations can and do behave hypocritically - insisting that others follow the law they ignore.
There isn't a difference. The terminology in England and Wales that means the same thing is "litigant in person", with the source of these Latin phrases have abandoned them in favor of plain English terminology. The variation of usage, however, does not necessarily break down on a federal v. state court basis. Pro se is the majority usage, but the variation is more regional, within state courts, than it is a federal v. state divide. California and Michigan, for example, use both terms and use them interchangeably. If there is a historical reason for the variation in terminology, I haven't groked it. Incidentally, there was historically a subtle distinction between the two concepts related to consent to the personal jurisdiction of the court that has long since become obsolete (more than a century ago), but which movements such as the "sovereign person" movement errantly believe has great legal importance to the power of a court over them.
It's complicated, to say the least. A good starting point is the Wikipedia page on the Law of India... India maintains a hybrid legal system with a mixture of civil, common law and customary, Islamic ethics, or religious law within the legal framework inherited from the colonial era and various legislation first introduced by the British are still in effect in modified forms today. Since the drafting of the Indian Constitution, Indian laws also adhere to the United Nations guidelines on human rights law and the environmental law. ...and identifies: Constitutional and administrative law (with the Constitution, in various languages, found here) Criminal law Contract law Labour law Company law Tort law Property law Tax law Trust law Family law and personal law Nationality law For researching specific legislation, the India Code site is a comprehensive &quot;Digital Repository of All Central and State Acts&quot; and contains searchable legislation for all the above areas. And then there's the Indian Kanoon with a large amount of caselaw from court and tribunal decisions.
One does not introduce statutes in a trial, criminal of civil. Rather, one introduces facts. The judge will present &quot;the law&quot;, and will present it in a digested form in the form of interpreted instructions to the jury about what the law says. Jurors are not required to interpret the meaning of statutes, because jurors are also not expected to know the relevant case law surrounding a statute. A party might make a motion to the judge where the argument depends in part on the wording of a statute. Then there is a standard but jurisdiction-dependent way of referring to s statute, e.g. ORS 164.015, RCW 9A.56.010. For Minnesota there are three interchangeable forms: &quot;Minnesota Statutes 2008, section 123.45, subdivision 6&quot; which is the same as &quot;MINN. STAT. 123.45 (2008)&quot; or &quot;MINN. STAT. ANN. 123.45 (2008)&quot;, which is for statutes. You have to look it up on a jurisdiction by jurisdiction basis – here is the answer that Minnesota gives (all legal citations).
There are two legal jurisdictions in the Channel Islands, the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey. The law in Guernsey differs from the law in the UK partly because the Common Law developed differently (more Norman influence on Guernsey than on England) and partly because Guernsey and the UK have different legislatures and so pass different laws. Until recently the UK was a member of an organisation based in Belgium and Luxembourg called the European Union which has its own legal system and courts and which requires member states to enact identical legislation in certain matters including, in particular, employment law. Although the UK is no longer a member of the EU most of its employment laws remain as they were in the EU-era. By contrast Guernsey has never been a member of the EU. So this is an additional reason for differences in laws. Generally the parties to a contract can stipulate what law governs the contract and which country's courts have jurisdiction. For example a contract between a Guernsey company and an individual resident in England could be stipulated to be governed by the laws of France and subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of Barbados (this particular example is highly unlikely but I am just illustrating the principle). If the contract does not stipulate the law (or the contract is unwritten) then there are default rules which determine which jurisdiction's laws apply. However, that said, most countries, including England and Wales, have some &quot;mandatory&quot; employment laws. These are laws which apply to everyone employed in England (or Wales) even if England/Wales does not generally cover the contract of employment. Mandatory laws typically cover such things as minimum pay rates, rest periods, minimum paid holiday entitlement, protection from unfair dismissal etc. So some employment laws in England and Wales apply to everyone working in England and Wales whilst some other aspects of the employment relationship are governed by the law of the contract - which might be England and Wales or might be some other system of law.
Admiralty law is the law of the sea and maritime activities. (Admiralty law also applies to boats on the "navigable waters" of the United States such as the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.) It has its roots in a mix of customary international law, treaties related to the law of the sea, and domestic statutes. It is closer in some respects to the law of civil law countries than of common law countries, although it is distinct from both. In the U.S., admiralty law is part of federal court jurisdiction and the U.S. district courts are our admiralty courts. But, each country with maritime commerce has some version of admiralty law based around a core of customary international law and treaties, with domestic statutes similar to those of other countries statutes dealing with the topic. Admiralty law is distinctive and different from domestic law in a variety of circumstances, most notably: The law governing when a ship can be detained in port to make a judgment in an admiralty proceeding against it enforceable. This is similar to a writ of attachment in domestic law (a pre-judgment seizure of assets to make a potential judgment collectable) but more broadly available. The rights of seamen vis-a-vis their employers. The relevance of the flag under which a ship sails. The "traffic laws" of the sea. The duties of a ship that encounters another ship or individuals in distress at sea. The duties of a ship that encounters hostile others parties, such as pirates, at sea. The tort law applicable to torts particular to a maritime context that take place at sea. For example, in a collision of ships, or from a failure to honor duties related to distressed ships, or from interference with a ship's commercial activity (e.g. in connection with a fishing expedition). The law governing property interests and sharing of proceeds from "prizes" such as the salvage of sinking, sunk or abandoned ships. In general, admiralty law has declined in importance as lots of high value commerce has shifted to air travel, and as ocean going ships have become bigger and better behaved corporate interests, and because modern conditions make ships at sea less isolated from the rest of the world.
The common law is an Anglo-Norman hybrid, not an Anglo-French one At the time of the Conquest, neither France nor England had a consistent or uniform legal system. Instead, both had regional patchworks of law administered by local lords, sheriffs, and tradition. The Conquest was in 1066. The earliest recognizable common law concepts are about 200 years later. Civil law is even more recent - it dates from the Code Napoleon in 1804 although, obviously, this did not emerge from a vacuum with roots in Roman law.