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Civil law (or civilian law) is a legal system originating in Europe, intellectualized within the 
framework of late Roman law, and whose most prevalent feature is that its core principles 
are codified into a referable system which serves as the primary source of law. This can be 
contrasted with common law systems whose intellectual framework comes from judge-
made decisional law which gives precedential authority to prior court decisions on the principle 
that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different occasions (doctrine of 
judicial precedent).
[1][2]
 
Historically, civil law is the group of legal ideas and systems ultimately derived from theCode of 
Justinian, but heavily overlaid by Germanic, canon-law, feudal, and local practices,
[3]
 as well as 
doctrinal strains such as natural law, codification, and legislative positivism. 
Conceptually, civil law proceeds from abstractions, formulates general principles, and 
distinguishes substantive rules from procedural rules.
[4]
 It holds case law to be secondary and 
subordinate to statutory law, and the court system is usually inquisitorial, unbound by precedent, 
and composed of specially-trained, functionary judicial officers with limited authority to interpret 
law. Jury trials are not used, although in some cases, benches may be sat by a mixed panel 
of lay magistrates and career judges. 
 
 
The purpose of codification is to provide all citizens with manners and written collection of the 
laws which apply to them and which judges must follow. It is the most widespread system of law 
in the world, in force in various forms in about 150 countries,
[5]
 and draws heavily from Roman 
law, arguably the most intricate known legal system dating from before the modern era. Colonial 
expansion spread the civil law which has been received in much of Latin America and parts 
of Asia and Africa.
[6]
 
Where codes exist, the primary source of law is the law code, which is a systematic collection of 
interrelated articles,
[7]
 arranged by subject matter in some pre-specified order,
[8]
 and that explain 
the principles of law, rights and entitlements, and how basic legal mechanisms work. Law codes 
are usually created by a legislature's enactment of a new statute that embodies all the old 
statutes relating to the subject and including changes necessitated by court decisions. In some 
cases, the change results in a new statutory concept. Other major legal systems in the world 
includecommon law, Halakha, canon law, and Islamic law. 
Civilian countries can be divided into: 
  those where civil law in some form is still living law but there has been no attempt to 
create a civil code: Andorra and San Marino 
  those with uncodified mixed systems in which civil law is an academic source of authority 
but common law is also influential: Scotland andRoman-Dutch law countries (South 
Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and Guyana) 
  those with codified mixed systems in which civil law is the background law but has its 
public law heavily influenced by common law: Louisiana,Quebec, Puerto Rico, Philippines 

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Civil law (or civilian law) is a legal system originating in Europe, intellectualized within the framework of late Roman law, and whose most prevalent feature is that its core principles are codified into a referable system which serves as the primary source of law. This can be contrasted with common law systems whose intellectual framework comes from judge-made decisional law which gives precedential authority to prior court decisions on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different occasions (doctrine of judicial precedent).[1][2] Historicall ...
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