Civil Law System
The legal family built on comprehensive codes descending from Roman law
Overview
The civil law family, heir to Justinian's compilation as filtered through Napoleon and the German pandectists, organizes law into codes, statutes, and doctrine, with precedent influential but not formally binding. Judges typically investigate in criminal process and career through a bureaucratic judiciary. Around one hundred fifty countries follow it, from France and Germany through Latin America to much of Asia and Africa. Its virtues are coherence, accessibility, and legislative primacy, its critics say rigidity. Judges sit in career hierarchies, and their decisions are traditionally unsigned and collective in many systems.
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