Talk:Civil law

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Untitled[edit]

I removed the following:

(3) In latin systems the civil law is a part of the entire system, which is simply shared into civil law and penal law (some authors prefer to add constitutional law, which is also a source for the other two branches).

While the penal law refers to criminal acts (the etymology itself puts into evidence that the matter is focused on the punishment), civil law deals with the remaining possible conduct of the citizens (the not-criminal behaviour of legal relevance) and regulates it in all of its possible forms.

See also criminal law.

This is just sense (2) applied to the legal systems mentioned in sense (1). (Also, whoever is referring to "latin systems", this is not usual English terminology--the proper English terminology is "civil law tradition" or the "civil law system" or even just "civil law", although the last one can cause confusion.) -- SJK

The problem is that some civil law systems are not based on Napoleonic Law at all -- Roadrunner

I don't think this is accurate at all....

By the end of the 20th century, the difference between the two systems had become primarily procedural, with courts in common-law countries using an adversarial system -- in which the judge (and jury) consider only whatever evidence the parties to the litigation put before them and decide what facts to believe and then what verdict is just -- and with judges in civil-law countries acting more as investigators -- so they first ascertain what the facts are and then apply the written code of law to them to render a decision.

It is not accurate, I agree. I hope to flesh out the differences between the common law and the civil law I have started Law of Obligations which I will try to start fleshing out in the next few weeks. Alex 01:56 Apr 24, 2003 (UTC) Also, civil law in the common law tradition is NOT just contractual law and a tort is not the violation of a contract! Alex

Lawyers I don't think the substitution of "public law" for "criminal law" is correct. According to the public law entry, public law is essentially the same as common law. So this change basically makes #2 semantically equivalent to #1. Criminal law is an entirely different animal. -- Ortonmc 16:16, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The role of case law in France is specially mentioned in the article. Are there actually any countries with a civil law system where case law doesn't play any role at all? As far as I can see that would lead to unreasonable and undesirable inconsistency in the application of law. 62.78.198.49 20:16, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The Civil Law System apears to have been deleted from this article which will lead to manny a frustration. Paladine

PS whats utc

This isn't true

An old version of trial laws, in which a man is guilty until proven innocent. This is opposite of Common Law.

Roadrunner 19:04, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It would be very nice if someone could come up with an accurate description of this system as it compares to Common Law. Anyone? Barefootmatt 15:16, 4 Jul 2005 (PST)

This page is really rather bad. It also omits the distinction between civil and military (martial) law. And it needs a link (someone who knows wikicode better than I can should add) to the Civil law (legal system) article, or maybe a disambiguation page.

I've marked it as needing attention. I'm tempted to mark it as needing expert attention, because whoever wrote it seems unclear on basic legal terms, but lets see if regular attention works first? Here are a few of the problems I've identified other than the above:

- I've never heard "civil law" used in opposition to "natural law." Natural law theory suggests that civil law is appropriately derived from natural law, but doesn't necessarily imply an opposition as I understand it at the moment. (I'm no natural law theory expert though.)

- Second paragraph in "as opposed to criminal law" seems to imply that "contractual law" includes all civil law. This is untrue.

- First paragraph of that section ignores all kinds of civil public law (i.e. environmental law, labor law) that is neither contract nor tort. - Can't verify the ius civile/ius gentium distinction, especially terms used: need a source.

Maybe this does need expert attention. I invite anyone who agrees to add the expert designator. It also might be worthwhile to split it up into separate pages covering the many different senses of the term.

--Paultopia 19:03, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Present definition: "2. It is the area of common law governing relations between private individuals." That is the definition of public law (as opposed to private law. Pretty close, but not exactly correct. Civil law can also come from statutory law. --User: 71.131.31.48

You are correct that statutory law is part of this meaning, however I do not see how this affects the previous definition. A definition in terms of the common law, without any mention of statutes, does not imply the exclusion of statutory law. Every aspect of law is is some way regulated by statutory law, so I think it's redundant to explicitly mention it. In any event, in certain contexts, civil law is effectively the same as private law, so characterizing it like that would be correct as well. PullUpYourSocks 21:01, 20 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know much about Louisiana, but I understand that all of their law (even civil law) is statutory law and not common law. --User: 71.131.31.48

Present definition: "3. laws imposed by the state as distinguished from laws inherent from nature." This is trying to redefine it as opposed to natural law. Normally, natural law compared with Legal realism and legal positivism --User: 71.131.31.48

I'd also agree with your characterization of natural law as distinguished from realism and positivism, but the definition here is much broader than that. It's meant to describe more of a philosophy-neutral word meaning "human made" law. The term is derived from the ancient use of the term "civil law", back when roman law was the only law and civil law effectively meant just "law". Some law dictionaries have this meaning, some don't. If people are too doubtful of it, I'd suggest getting rid of it to avoid confusion. PullUpYourSocks 21:01, 20 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's ok to have an archaic definition, but I think it should be labelled def:archaic or however wikipedia denotes archaic? Good discussion.--User: 71.131.31.48

i erased the thing that said civil law are state imposed laws. that is not true.

More options needed[edit]

This page makes a start at identifying various meanings of the phrase "civil law," but it needs more work. Off the top of my head, I can think of the following possible meanings depending on the context:

The Continental European legal system, as opposed to English common law-based systems (already listed under Civil law (legal system)).

The part of the common law that relates to 'civil' cases as opposed to criminal law (already listed under Civil law (common law), although it isn't clear to me whether similar terminology is used in the civil law (first sense) countries.

The civilian legal system, as opposed to military or martial law.

The secular legal system, as opposed to religious or canon law.

The last two meanings don't currently appear on the disambig page. Also, to the extent that civil-law jurisdictions maintain a distinction between "civil" and other categories of law, that meaning isn't apparent either. --Russ (talk) 16:05, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, as a disambiguation page it's not supposed to be "identifying various meanings of the phrase 'civil law'" -- it's supposed to be identifying Wikipedia articles that the user might be looking for when they arrive at this page (either through an "ambiguous" link or from typing in the term). However, if all the other articles are really just variations on a theme, it may be that a real article should be started at this location (which could reference the other articles where appropriate e.g. Storage tank.) Ewlyahoocom 05:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Civil law is a term in civil law countries that is clearly identified as an area of law opposed to public law (and criminal law as part of that). So if there is any justification to mention other meanings, it only can refer to the legal system denomination, which appears to be rather a thoughtlessness of a regional Jurisprudence. For a disambiguation page it should be enough to distinguish area of law and system of law. I cannot see any reason to mention private law or civil code without context. Disambiguation pages are no substitute for articles or portals. --Genicks (talk) 00:13, 2 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]