Differences and development trends between continental law system and Anglo-American law system

Continental law system is also called continental law system, and Anglo-American law system is also called Anglo-American law system. The difference between them is that:

First, the legal sources are different. Continental law system is a statutory law system, and its laws exist in the form of statutory law. Its legal sources include various normative legal documents formulated by the legislature, various administrative regulations promulgated by the administrative organs and international treaties to which the state is a party, but it does not include judicial precedents. The legal sources of Anglo-American legal system include both statute law and precedent, and the case law constituted by precedent occupies a very important position in the whole legal system.

Second, the legal structure is different. The continental law system inherits the tradition of ancient Roman law and is used to making uniform and systematic provisions on the norms involved in a certain legal department in the form of code, which constitutes the backbone of the legal system structure. The Anglo-American legal system seldom formulates codes, and is used to making special provisions on a certain kind of problems in the form of a single law. Therefore, its legal system is mainly developed from single-line law and case law in structure.

Third, judges have different powers. The civil law system emphasizes that judges can only use the provisions of the statute law to try cases, and the judge's interpretation of the statute law is also strictly limited by the statute law itself, so judges can only apply the law but not create the law. Judges in the Anglo-American legal system can refer to both written laws and existing cases, and they can also create new cases by using the skills of legal interpretation and legal reasoning under certain conditions, so that judges can not only apply the law, but also create laws within a certain range.

Fourth, the proceedings are different. The procedure of civil law system is centered on the judge, which highlights the function of the judge and has the characteristics of interrogation procedure. In addition, most judges and jurors form a court to hear cases. The litigation procedure in the common law system focuses on the plaintiff, the defendant, their defenders and agents, and the judge is only the "arbitrator" of the dispute between the two parties and cannot participate in the dispute. At the same time, there is a jury system in this adversarial (also called defense) procedure. The jury is mainly responsible for making factual conclusions and basic legal conclusions (such as guilt or innocence), and the judge is responsible for making specific legal conclusions, that is, judgments.

Fifth, the legal classification is different. Generally speaking, the civil law system divides law into public law and private law, while the common law system does not. The common law system mainly divides law into substantive law and procedural law. Different classification methods have fundamental differences in the formulation of laws.

Today, the two legal systems tend to merge and absorb each other.