Precedent - Contrasting Role of Case Law in Common Law, Civil Law, and Mixed Systems

Contrasting Role of Case Law in Common Law, Civil Law, and Mixed Systems

The different roles of case law in civil law and common law traditions create differences in the way that courts render decisions. Common law courts generally explain in detail the legal rationale behind their decisions, with citations of both legislation and previous relevant judgments, and often an exegesis of the wider legal principles. The necessary analysis (called ratio decidendi), then constitutes a precedent binding on other courts; further analyses not strictly necessary to the determination of the current case are called obiter dicta, which constitute persuasive authority but are not technically binding. By contrast, decisions in civil law jurisdictions are generally very short, referring only to statutes. The reason for this difference is that these civil law jurisdictions adhere to a tradition that the reader should be able to deduce the logic from the decision and the statutes, so that, in some cases, it is somewhat difficult to apply previous decisions to the facts presented in future cases.

Some pluralist systems, such as Scots law in Scotland and so-called civil law jurisdictions in Quebec and Louisiana, do not precisely fit into the dual "common-civil" law system classifications. Such systems may have been heavily influenced by the Anglo-American common law tradition; however, their substantive law is firmly rooted in the civil law tradition. Because of their position between the two main systems of law, these types of legal systems are sometimes referred to as "mixed" systems of law.

Law professors in common law traditions play a much smaller role in developing case law than professors in civil law traditions. Because court decisions in civil law traditions are brief and not amenable to establishing precedent, much of the exposition of the law in civil law traditions is done by academics rather than by judges; this is called doctrine and may be published in treatises or in journals such as Recueil Dalloz in France. Historically, common law courts relied little on legal scholarship; thus, at the turn of the twentieth century, it was very rare to see an academic writer quoted in a legal decision (except perhaps for the academic writings of prominent judges such as Coke and Blackstone). Today academic writers are often cited in legal argument and decisions as persuasive authority; often, they are cited when judges are attempting to implement reasoning that other courts have not yet adopted, or when the judge believes the academic's restatement of the law is more compelling than can be found in precedent. Thus common law systems are adopting one of the approaches long common in civil law jurisdictions.