What are the two legal systems in the West? What are their characteristics? And evaluate their advantages and disadvantages.

History of Foreign Legal System —— Two Legal Systems

The legal system is the classification of laws according to their historical traditions and external characteristics. /kloc-since the 0/9th century, with the rise of comparative law, the word legal system has been put forward. Later, it was widely used in western jurisprudence. Western scholars have different opinions on the criteria for dividing legal systems. Among the many standards of division, René David, a famous French comparator, explained and classified the legal system. He divided the laws of contemporary countries into three legal systems, namely, civil law system, English law system and socialist law system. In the history course of foreign legal systems, you will learn about the civil law system and the common law system.

The civil law system is also called the Romano-Germanic law system. Its main historical origins are Roman law and Germanic law, as well as church law, commercial law and city law. Most countries in western Europe have always adopted common law based on Germanic law, commonly known as "common law". Roman law here refers to the Roman law reorganized by the Italian annotation school in the early and late period to meet the new needs of western European countries.

These are the main historical origins of the Roman-Germanic legal system and the main factors of the laws of feudal countries in Western Europe. With the development of capitalist commodity economy and trade exchanges and the trend of political unification in these countries, many laws are interrelated, and at the same time, some forms and characteristics have emerged. After the victory of the bourgeois revolution, many western European countries, such as France, Germany and Italy, established and consolidated the capitalist system. In order to adapt to the development of capitalist economy, politics and culture, as well as the exchanges between these countries, their legal systems further developed their mutual relations and the same characteristics, thus resulting in the Roman Germanic legal system. First, the first base of the Romano-Germanic Law Department was established in France, and then the second base was established in Germany. These two western European countries have successively formulated a series of codes and formed a complete legal system. The codes and legal systems of these two countries are closely related to each other and share many common features. Accompany? 8. With the global development of capitalism in the19th century, the legislative and codification movements emerged and continued to develop not only in European countries, but also in many countries and regions in Asia, America and Africa. They either imitate French law, or directly transform and transplant its code and legal system, or accept its influence, so the Romano-Germanic law system has become the largest legal system in the world.

The characteristics of civil law system are:

1, the civil law system systematically and directly accepted the influence of Roman law. France, Germany and other countries systematically and directly accepted the influence of Roman law, making it evolve into a civil law system with the nature of basic law and serving as the basis of the whole legal system. The structure, content, principles and forms of French Civil Code and German Civil Code are deeply influenced by Roman law. These two famous civil codes are the core and symbol of the Romano-Germanic law system, which has two branches, one is the Latin branch represented by the French Civil Code, and the other is the Germanic branch represented by the German Civil Code, each with its own characteristics.

2. There is no case law in the common civil law system, and the written law is its legal form, which attaches importance to the compilation of the code. The complete written law system consists of various departments' laws. The designation method pays attention to levels and systems, and pays attention to mutual coordination and cooperation. Law professors and experts have great influence on the formulation and development of law. Generally speaking, judges make laws in common law system and professors make laws in civil law system.

3. The civil law system requires judges to handle cases according to law, and judges play a leading role in the trial. Judges often expand the scope of application of legal provisions through interpretation. Statutory law cannot cover legal problems and cases caused by ever-changing social phenomena, and allows judges to apply analogy, which becomes a supplementary form of statutory law.

The British legal system began in 1066 when Norman conquered Britain. Because the United States is a former colony of Britain, it still maintains the tradition of English law after independence, and at the same time it is an economically developed capitalist country that left Britain earlier. It not only occupies an important position in the British legal system, but also has some important characteristics different from English law, so it is also called the English legal system like the Anglo-American legal system.

At first, English law only applied to England and Wales, with little influence. From the17th century, Britain began to plunder colonies and compete for maritime hegemony. After the British bourgeois revolution, this activity was stepped up and a large number of colonial territories were occupied one after another. With the expansion of British colonialism and colonies, British laws were brought to these areas as a means of British colonial rule and were enforced and applied. After independence, the colonies still maintained the tradition and influence of English law to varying degrees, and continued to adopt some principles and systems of English law as the basis of the legal systems of these countries. But they are also different. There are two kinds of British colonies: one is "white territory" and the other is "colored territory". The United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and other "white territories", among which several other countries are still members of the Commonwealth, except that the United States became independent earlier and its legal system has its own characteristics. Its legal system is closer to that of Britain. The "colored territories", such as India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Africa, Central and South America and other former British colonies, retained some local customary laws during the colonial period, and were influenced by the tradition of Roman-Germanic law system since independence, so the degree of adopting English law was lower than that of previous countries, and more of their own characteristics were retained?

The basic characteristics of the British legal system are:

1, case law is the main source of law. An important feature of English law is that there is no written code. Law is mainly composed of case law. Common law and equity, as the main components of English law, are formed by the long-term accumulation of judicial precedents of royal courts and chancery courts, so case law has become the main source of English law. If Congress cancels all its decrees, the British legal system will still exist. If case law is abolished, English law will become some incoherent and sporadic provisions.

2. It is of great significance to follow the precedent principle and case compilation. The basic meaning of following the precedent principle is that the legal principles contained in previous judgments are binding on similar cases in the future. This principle is formed in the long-term trial practice.

3. Judges and jurists play an important role in the development of law. Judges and jurists play an important role in English law. English law is based on case law, which is the basic component and pillar of English law, and the rules of precedent are accumulated by judges' judgments in long-term trial activities, so judges' judgments play a legislative role.

4. Influenced by Roman law, it is different from continental law.