Common Law and Civil Law Systems

In continuing with the common law theme, I want to point out that all of Europe use the Civil Law (codified) system, with the exception of: England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland which uniquely uses a hybrid of common law and civil law. Note that when I mention ‘all of Europe’, I also mean the countries not in the EU but in the geographical location of Europe. Worldwide, the systems of law looks like this:

© Wikipedia

At the moment, there is some debate on the OU law forums about whether EU law is relevant following Brexit. Some people think that within two years or so, EU law will become irrelevant, and are advocating that the EU law module be removed from the LLB program. Personally, I think that idea is a bit rubbish. EU law will remain relevant for decades to come as many decisions in common law have made precedent setting judgments (we will discuss precedence in more detail in a short while). Keep in mind also that many EU laws have been legislated into national law. Also, a lot of trade will continue with the EU so laws dealing with economic trading, patents, copyright, licenses etc. will still be relevant, or new ones will come into effect. Not to mention that the ECHR is still crucial, and human rights affect nearly every area of law. So to say that EU law will soon be irrelevant is myopic at best. Feel free to let me know your views in the comments section.

We will come to EU law in a lot more detail later on.

*EU – European Union

*OU – Open University

*ECHR – European Convention on Human Rights