Civil law system?

(A) the formation of the civil law system

1. What is the civil law system? Civil law system is also called Roman law system, statutory law system, civil law system or Roman-Germanic law system (because its historical origin is Roman law and Germanic law, in addition to church law, commercial law and city law). It is a legal system with a long history, wide distribution and far-reaching influence in capitalist countries. Represented by France and Germany in continental Europe, it has gradually developed into a worldwide legal system on the basis of Roman law and other legal elements. Within the civil law system, different countries and regions have different legal systems, and there are generally two branches-the Latin branch represented by the French Civil Code and the Germanic branch represented by the German Civil Code.

2. The formation of civil law system is based on Roman law.

(1) In the heyday of Rome, the Roman rulers expanded their territory by force and forcibly applied Roman law. The residents in the conquered areas voluntarily adopted Roman law because of its development and perfection, making Roman law "the first worldwide law in the society of commodity producers".

(2) After the Germanic invasion of Rome, the Germanic law adopted the principle of individualism, which preserved the Roman law. The code compiled by Germanic countries was influenced by Roman law. In the 9th century, with the development of feudal system, the personal theory of law no longer applies, and Roman law and Germanic law merged.

(3) After12 century, the revival of Roman law rose, and the study of Roman law was combined with the actual needs of society and became the authoritative supplementary law of continental countries in Western Europe. Roman law, which has been transformed and developed, has become the common law in Europe, and has the same characteristics and legal traditions, thus laying the foundation for the civil law system.

(4) After the victory of the bourgeois revolution, many western European countries established and consolidated the capitalist system, and the legal systems of these countries further developed with the development of capitalist economy, politics and culture and the exchanges between countries. First of all, in France, under the impetus of bourgeois revolution, under the guidance of classical natural law and rationalism, and under the direct influence of Roman law, a model of formulating a complete statutory law system was created. The Code of France has become a model for European countries to establish their own legal systems, marking the establishment of a modern continental law system model. Subsequently, Germany enacted a series of codes on the basis of inheriting Roman law and absorbing French legislative experience. The German Code has become a typical representative of the era when capitalism developed from a free economy to a monopoly economy.

(5) Because the civil law represented by France and Germany has adapted to the needs of the whole capitalist society, and because it is easy to spread in the form of strict written law, the civil law system has spread across Europe and all over the world since the19th century and the 20th century.

(B) the characteristics of the civil law system

1. In the historical origin of law, the civil law system developed under the direct influence of Roman law. The civil law system not only inherits the written law tradition of Roman law, but also absorbs the system, concepts and terms of Roman law. For example, the French Civil Code is a ladder based on law, while the German Civil Code is a collection based on theory.

2. In legal form, there is generally no case law in civil law countries, and important departmental laws are codified, supplemented by separate laws and regulations, forming a relatively complete legal system. The natural law thought and rationalism advocated by bourgeois enlightenment thinkers are one of the reasons for the codification of civil law countries. 179 1 The "Declaration of Human Rights" in the French Constitution clearly declared that everyone's natural rights can only be determined by statute law. The thoroughness of the bourgeois revolution in continental European countries, represented by the French Revolution, was manifested in law by launching a large-scale codification movement. The strict distinction between legislation and judicature requires that the code must be complete, clear and logical. Once the code is promulgated, judges must faithfully implement it, and the old laws on similar issues will lose their effectiveness. The written statutory system includes: Constitution, administrative law, civil law, commercial law, criminal law, civil procedure law and criminal procedure law.

3. In terms of the role of judges, civil law requires judges to handle cases according to law and have no legislative power. Civil law countries have a clear division of labor between legislation and judicature, emphasizing the authority of written law, and the effectiveness of written law takes precedence over other legal sources. Moreover, all laws are divided into public law and private law, with a complete legal system and clear concepts. Judges can only strictly enforce the law, and may not create laws or violate the spirit of legislation without authorization.

4. Civil law system generally adopts the dual-track system of court system, and attaches importance to the distinction between substantive law and procedural law. The civil law system generally adopts the dual-track system of separating ordinary courts from administrative courts, and judges are appointed by the government after examination, strictly distinguishing substantive law from procedural law, and generally adopting inquisitorial litigation.

5. The form and method of legal reasoning is deductive method. Because judicial power is greatly limited, laws can only be formulated by representative legislature, and judges can only judge cases with established laws. Therefore, in civil law countries, the role of judges is to find the applicable legal provisions from the existing legal provisions, and link them with the facts to infer the inevitable results.

The modern French legal system was established in the Napoleonic era, which not only laid the foundation for the later development of French capitalism, but also had a great influence on the legal system of modern western countries. France is the country that promulgated the most constitutions in modern times, and the Declaration of Human Rights established a series of bourgeois legal principles. France is the earliest and most developed country in western countries. Implementation of French Civil Code 65438 to 0804

This paper introduces the basic principles of bourgeois civil law, which marks the formation of civil law system and is a milestone in the development of civil law after Roman law. French Criminal Code 18 10 is the first criminal code in modern times, which embodies the criminal law principles of the bourgeoisie. French procedural law laid the foundation of civil law litigation system. French law is the representative of civil law system and occupies an important position in the history of world legal system.

(A) the formation and development of the French legal system

1. Formation and development of feudal legal system

The legal system in the feudal period of France generally refers to all the laws of the Kingdom of France that lasted for nearly 1000 years from the first half of the 9th century to the second half of the 8th century. The symbol of its beginning time is the division of Frank Charlemagne's kingdom in 843 AD.

1789 French bourgeois revolution broke out. In the formation and development of French feudal legal system, it went through three stages, namely

From the 9th century to13rd century, customary law was dominant, from13rd century to16th century, customary law became culture, and from16th century to18th century, royal legislation became the main source of law, which laid the foundation for the formation and development of modern French bourgeois legal system.

2. The establishment of the bourgeois legal system

After the victory of French bourgeois revolution, the feudal system was basically destroyed. Because the French Revolution was thorough and guided by a set of mature ideological theories, the legal system established after the Revolution was relatively systematic and complete, which typically reflected the interests of the bourgeoisie and had a great influence on the establishment and development of legal systems in other capitalist countries. From 65438 to 0799, Napoleon staged a coup. During Napoleon's reign, in order to affirm the victory of bourgeois revolution, safeguard the private property system, consolidate bourgeois rule and eliminate the phenomenon of disunity of laws, Napoleon personally led large-scale legislative activities and compiled a series of codes. They are: 1804 French Civil Code, 1806 Civil Procedure Law, 1807 Commercial Code, 1808 Criminal Procedure Law and18 Criminal Code. Together with the French Constitution, these five codes constitute the "six laws" system of France. The appearance of the six French laws marked the formation of the French bourgeois legal system and pushed the legislative activities of modern France to a peak. It should be pointed out that the enactment of Civil Code and Commercial Code not only provided France with the first civil law and commercial law, but also provided many countries with civil law system with a legislative model of separation of civil law and commercial law.