Civil Law (legal System) - Subgroups

Subgroups

The term civil law comes from English legal scholarship and is used in English-speaking countries to lump together all legal systems of the jus commune tradition. However, legal comparativists and economists promoting the legal origins theory prefer to subdivide civil law jurisdictions into four distinct groups:

• Napoleonic: France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Quebec (Canada), Louisiana (U.S.), Italy, Romania, the Netherlands, Spain, and their former colonies;
• Germanistic: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Roman-Dutch, Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Brazil, Portugal, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan (Republic of China);
• Scandinavian: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.
• Chinese (except Hong Kong) is a mixture of civil law and socialist law. Hong Kong, although part of China, uses common law. The Basic Law of Hong Kong ensures the use and status of common law in Hong Kong.

Portugal, Brazil, and Italy have shifted from Napoleonic to Germanistic influence, as their 19th century civil codes were close to the Napoleonic Code, whereas their 20th-century civil codes are much closer to the German Civil Code. More recently, Brazil's 2002 Civil Code drew heavily from the Italian Civil Code in its unification of private law; legal culture and academic law now more closely follow the Germanistic tradition. The other law in these countries is often said to be of a hybrid nature.

Some systems of civil law do not fit neatly into this typology, however. The Polish law developed as a mixture of French and German civil law in the 19th century. After the reunification of Poland in 1918, five legal systems (French Napoleonic Code from the Duchy of Warsaw, German BGB from Western Poland, Austrian ABGB from Southern Poland, Russian law from Eastern Poland, and Hungarian law from Spisz and Orawa) were merged into one. Similarly, Dutch law, while originally codified in the Napoleonic tradition, has been heavily altered under influence from the Netherlands' native tradition of Roman-Dutch law (still in effect in its former colonies). Scotland's civil law tradition borrowed heavily from Roman-Dutch law. Swiss law is categorized as Germanistic, but it has been heavily influenced by the Napoleonic tradition, with some indigenous elements added in as well.

Louisiana private law is primarily a Napoleonic system. Louisiana is the only U.S. state partially based on French and Spanish codes and ultimately Roman law, as opposed to English common law. In Louisiana, private law was codified into the Louisiana Civil Code. Current Louisiana law has converged considerably with American law, especially in its public law, judicial system, and adoption of the Uniform Commercial Code (except for Article 2) and certain legal devices of American common law. In fact, any innovation, whether private or public, has been decidedly common law in origin. Likewise, Quebec law, whose private law is similarly of French civilian origin, has developed along the same lines, having adapted in the same way as Louisiana to the public law and judicial system of Canadian common law. By contrast, Quebec private law has innovated mainly from civilian sources. To a lesser extent, other states formerly part of the Spanish Empire, such as Texas and California, have also retained aspects of Spanish Civil law into their legal system, for example community property.

Several Islamic countries have civil law systems that contain elements of Islamic law. As an example, the Egyptian Civil Code of 1810 [That developed in the early 19th century—which remains in force in Egypt is the basis for the civil law in many countries of the Arab world where the civil law is used— is based on the Napoleonic Code, but its primary author Abd El-Razzak El-Sanhuri attempted to integrate principles and features of Islamic law in deference to the unique circumstances of Egyptian society.