• azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    It’s a bit more nuanced than that…

    Civil Law (used almost everywhere in the world outside the Commonwealth) still has Case Law, but it is held subordinate to legislation (itself usually built on top of Roman and Napoleonic law), whereas historically common law is built out of nothing but case law (because English kings had better things to do than concern themselves with the squabbles of peasants).

    Still, when presented with a novel case that isn’t specifically legislated for, judges in Civil Law countries can still make a ruling, and subsequent trials will have to take that ruling into acount.