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The doctrine of stare decisis, also known as case law or precedent by courts, is the major difference to codified civil law systems. Common law is practiced in Canada (excluding Quebec), Australia, New Zealand, most of the United Kingdom (England, Wales, and Northern Ireland), South Africa, Ireland, India (excluding Goa and Puducherry), [27 ...
Civil law is sometimes referred to as neo-Roman law, Romano-Germanic law or Continental law. The expression "civil law" is a translation of Latin jus civile, or "citizens' law", which was the late imperial term for its legal system, as opposed to the laws governing conquered peoples (jus gentium); hence, the Justinian Code's title Corpus Juris Civilis.
Early federal and state civil procedure in the United States was rather ad hoc and was based on traditional common law procedure but with much local variety. There were varying rules that governed different types of civil cases such as "actions" at law or "suits" in equity or in admiralty; these differences grew from the history of "law" and "equity" as separate court systems in English law.
The common law system, which originated in medieval England, is often contrasted with the civil law legal system originating in France and Italy. Whereas the civil law takes the form of legal codes such as the Napoleonic code, the common law comes from uncodified case law that arises as a result of judicial decisions, recognising prior court ...
The contrast between civil law and common law legal systems has become increasingly blurred, with the growing importance of jurisprudence (similar to case law but not binding) in civil law countries, and the growing importance of statute law and codes in common law countries.
Civil and criminal cases are usually heard in different courts. In jurisdictions based on English common-law systems, the party bringing a criminal charge (in most cases, the state) is called the "prosecution", but the party bringing most forms of civil action is the "plaintiff" or "claimant". In both kinds of action the other party is known as ...
Until 1938, federal courts in the United States followed the doctrine set forth in the 1842 case of Swift v.Tyson. [2] In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court held that federal courts hearing cases brought under their diversity jurisdiction (allowing them to hear cases between parties from different U.S. states) had to apply the statutory law of the states, but not the common law developed by ...
The legal systems of the Nordic countries are sometimes included among the civil law systems, but as a separate branch, and sometimes counted as separate from the civil law tradition. In Sweden , for instance, case law arguably plays a more important role than in some of the Continental codified law systems.