French Civil Law Essay

Civil law is essentially written law. Judges rely on laws or legislation written by the legislature or by distinguished scholars in order to make decisions. They cannot rely on previous decisions made in the courts as these decisions are not seen to be binding in Civil Law. In 1804, Napoleon created The French Civil Code, known as the ‘Code Civil’, which was the beginning of the development of civil law in the French legal system. This was the first time that civil law had been applied to the whole of France and it put an end to the hundreds of customary legal systems contained within the country . Contrary to common law, civil law is based on The Civil Code and all of French law derives from there. In civil law all law is codified, courts and judges rely solely on the law and don’t rely on previous decisions made in courts. The Civil Code incorporates the important laws and ideas from intermediate law. The Civil Code is divided into three books, the first book is about citizenship, family law and nationality, the second books is concerned with the transfer of property and the third book is about contract, succession and tort.

In the French legal system, students of law have the option of going on to study to be a solicitor, a barrister or a judge. There is a great degree of the separation of powers

Private law in France has been described as “that area of the law in which the sole function of government was the recognition and enforcement of private rights.” Private law deals with basic civil litigations involving private people and it also deals with petty crimes. It can be described as being “the basic law of the land” . In contrast, public law deals with “the effectuation of the public interest by state action.” It deals with ‘constitutional’ law, criminal law and administrative law and it also deals with disputes involving