Common Law - Common Law Legal Systems in The Present Day

Common Law Legal Systems in The Present Day

Civil law Common law Bijuridical (Civil and Common law) Islamic law

The common law constitutes the basis of the legal systems of: England and Wales, Northern Ireland, Ireland, federal law in the United States and the law of individual U.S. states (except Louisiana), federal law throughout Canada and the law of the individual provinces and territories (except Quebec), Australia (both federal and individual states), Kenya, New Zealand, South Africa, India,Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Pakistan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, The Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Granadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, and many other generally English-speaking countries or Commonwealth countries (except Scotland, which is bijuridicial, and Malta). Essentially, every country that was colonised at some time by England, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom uses common law except those that were formerly colonised by other nations, such as Quebec (which follows the law of France in part), South Africa and Sri Lanka (which follow Roman Dutch law), where the prior civil law system was retained to respect the civil rights of the local colonists. India uses common law except in the state of Goa which retains the Portuguese civil code. Guyana and Saint Lucia have mixed Common Law and Civil Law systems.

Read more about this topic:  Common Law

Famous quotes containing the words common, law, legal, systems, present and/or day:

    There is a certain wisdom of humanity which is common to the greatest men with the lowest, and which our ordinary education often labors to silence and obstruct.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony
    of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
    Bible: Hebrew Psalm XIX (l. XIX, 7)

    ... whilst you are proclaiming peace and good will to men, Emancipating all Nations, you insist upon retaining absolute power over wives. But you must remember that Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken—and notwithstanding all your wise Laws and Maxims we have it in our power not only to free ourselves but to subdue our Masters, and without violence throw both your natural and legal authority at our feet ...
    Abigail Adams (1744–1818)

    We have done scant justice to the reasonableness of cannibalism. There are in fact so many and such excellent motives possible to it that mankind has never been able to fit all of them into one universal scheme, and has accordingly contrived various diverse and contradictory systems the better to display its virtues.
    Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)

    There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market.
    He has no time to be anything but a machine.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)