A PANORAMA of the LEGAL SYSTEMS of the WORLD

Introduction to Law by Rufus Rodriguez

TWO CLASSIFICATIONS of Well-Developed Legal Systems

First: Based on ethnic, cultural group of people

Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Hebrew, Chinese, Hindu, Greek, Roman, Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, Japanese and AngloAmerican
Many of these are now gone (Egyptian and Mesopotamian) What remains are the Anglo-American and the Roman Hindi survives by tolerance Chinese alone survives in independence

Two Classifications of WellDeveloped Legal Systems (cont...)

Second: Based on religion

Catholic legal system (Papal/Canon Law), Mohammedan legal system

Catholic legal system exists as the law for the members of the universal Roman Catholic Church. Mohammendan system governs the spiritual life of its members but has been incorporated by many Islamic states into their official legal system.

EGYPTIAN Legal System

Traced back to beyond 4000 BC Found at the Valley of the Nile Came into contact with all the great primitive race-stocks of Africa, Asia and Europe Ended during the reign of Cleopatra

Eight century before Christ by the civil war and then by conquests of invaders from Assyria, Persia and Greece. The Roman Caezars struck the final blow to Egypts political independence.

Key Features of the Egyptian Legal System

The monarch (Pharaoh) was constitutionally the sole supreme ruler.

He ruled according to law; he was its autocratic spokesman. In theory, every land and every man (alive or dead) belonged to the monarch.
No man could be buried without the kings assent.

Monarch exercises the JUDICIAL, ADMINISTRATIVE, and LEGISLATIVE functions.

Key Features of the Egyptian Legal System (cont ...) legislation done? How was
The monarch made the law sole legislator. The earliest human lawgiver in Egyptian tradition was Menes (3200 BC)

How was justice administered?

The king and the supreme judges dispense justice through the central royal court (CRC).
CRC headed by the kings supreme justice, assisted by 30 supreme judges. Originally, the office of the prime minister and of chief judge were separate, but they were merged and the title chief judge signified always the kings chief minister. Presided by administrative officials, under the Central Court.

Provincial courts dispensed justice too.

Some Insights on the Egyptian Legal System

King Thutmose IIIs instruction to Bekhmire when appointed chief judge:

It is an abomination of god to show partiality. This is the teaching: thou shalt act alike to all, shalt regard him who is known to thee like him who is unknown to thee, and him who is near to... Like him who is far... An official who does this then shall flourish greatly in the place.

Some Insights on the Egyptian Legal System (con,t...)

Ramse IIs parameter of good leadership:

I planted the whole land with trees and green things, and made the people to dwell in their shade. I made the land safe, so that a lone woman could go on her way freely, and none would molest her. I rescued then humble from their oppressors. I made every man safe in his home. I preserved the lives of those who sought my court justice. The people were well content under my rule.

MESOPOTAMIAN Legal System

Emerged by 4000 years before Christ Mesopotamia was the land of the two rivers: Euphrates and Tigris Its civilization was centered about Babylon in the southern portion known as Chaldea and in Assyria in the north It lost its independence under the Persians about 500 years before Christ It disappeared under the Greeks about 100 years before Christ

Key Features of the Mesopotamian Legal System

The king was the foundation of justice. The king was the lawgiver, but he received the law from divine guidance or the deity.

The sun-god Shamash was the god of Law, whose children were Justice and Right.

Sumerian Urukagina of Lagash first historically known Mesopotamian lawgiver.

Key Features of the Mesopotamian Legal System (cont King .) Hammurabi (about 2100 BC)
deputized the administration of justice to the royal priest class in the temples to a body of royal secular judges, sitting commonly at the great gate and market place of the city.

Code of Hammurabi refers back to King Hammurabi. This is the earliest known national code in the world; it is the most complete, authentic and most advanced of ancient codes. The Code of Hammurabi covers the whole scope of law: crime, family, property, commerce. It reflects agricultural and trading economy.

Key Features of the Mesopotamian Legal System (cont .) Different Codes and their Insights on Divorce:
Code of Hammurabi Code of Assur Deuteronomy (Please, see p. 33. Introduction to Law by Rufus Rodriguez)

It was during the time of King Hammurabi where we find the earliest promissory note (PN) it the oldest negotiable instrument in the world. This manifest that at this time, we can already find advanced ideas in commercial law.

End of the Mesopotamian Legal System

It was during the time of Belshazzar, the last native ruler of Babylonia, when the Mesopotamian legal system was supplanted.
Belshazzar lost his empire to Cyrus, king of the new Persian nation. Later, new invading races followed and by a century before Christ, the Greek conquerors supplanted the Mesopotamian legal system. Hammurabis pillar-code was buried under the rubbles of ages, until 2000 years later when French explorer De Morgan found it.

HEBREW Legal System

Note: After the Egyptian and Mesopotamian legal systems, the next oldest legal system is the Chinese legal system. However, we are going to discuss the Hebrew Legal System because of its proximate affinity with the Mesopotamian Legal System.

The early Hebrew civilization was originally NOMADIC and PASTORAL, then AGRICULTURAL and only later COMMERCIAL.

HISTORY of the Hebrew Legal System

In Egypt and in Babylon, the Hebrew tribes were a subject people. About 2100 BC, the patriarch Abraham saw King Hammurabi as an enemy in battle. A thousand years later, Abraham and Aaron appeared in the Court of Pharaoh (King Rameses II, 1300 BC), asking for their peoples freedom from bondage. But it was during the time of the Hebrew judge DANIEL that the Hebrew Legal System developed.

HISTORY of the Hebrew Legal System (cont.)

FIVE well-defined STAGES of the Hebrew Legal System during DANIELs time:
1) MOSAIC PERIOD 2) CLASSIC PERIOD 3) TALMUDIC PERIOD 4) MEDIEVAL PERIOD 5) NATIONALIST PERIOD

MOSAIC PERIOD

Hebrew government was a THEOCRACY

Authority and power were ascribed to God Theos = god and Kratein = to rule Hebrews attributed their laws to divine lawgiver. Moses was said to have gone up Mount Sinai to receive from YAHWEH the Ten Commandments.

How was justice dispensed?

At first, personally dispensed by the tribal leader, then as tribal population multiplied and political life complex, justice was dispensed through an organized hierarchy of courts. In Exodus, Moses delegated justice to professional judges. Solomon was one example of a judge.

MOSAIC PERIOD (cont.)

From this period comes:

Pentateuch (Five Books) made up of narratives and codes, such as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Dueteronomy.
Pentateuch is also known as TORAH or Ancient Law.

CLASSIC PERIOD
Formed by the legal practice developing between 300 BC and AD 200. In theory, the government was still a THEOCRACY. Where was the FUNCTION of JUSTICE vested?

Ceased to be a ROYAL ONE. The Jewish people at this time had come under the suzerainty of the Persian, Greek and Roman rulers. However, in the Jewish internal government, supreme authority (religious, social, political, legislative, and judiciary) was vested in a Senate (Great Synhedrion Greek for Assembly and Bet din hagadol in Hebrew or high council). It consisted of 71 members.

CLASSIC PERIOD (cont.)

Under the Roman sovereignty, the Jewish people for two centuries preserved the administration of their own law.

Their ruler, Herod, was still called king. However, the convulsive political rebellions of the Jews, after the time of Jesus, led the Roman Emperor Vespasian to take rigorous revenge. Jerusalem fell in AD 70 under the assault of Titus, Vespasians son.
With the fall of Jerusalem, the Roman soldiers brought to Rome the Ark of the Law, containing the Scroll of the Law and the Seven Branched Candlestick. Hebrew self-government ended, and their legal system ceased to prevail.

TALMUDIC PERIOD
AD 200 to AD 500 Formed by the Talmud, i.e. reports of all recorded cases and commentators since about 300 BC, digested in two authoritative collections:

The Mishnah or the codified text (AD 200 in New Hebrew script) Gemara or commentary (about AD 300500, compiled in Aramaic script.

MEDIEVAL PERIOD

Began at the dispersion of the Jewish nation, culminating about AD 500 and extended over the next thousand years. Here, learned rabbi wrote treatises (in Hebrew or Arabic), compiled codes, and thus perpetuated the traditions of the law.
Maimonides is one of these rabbis; he lived in North Africa in 1400s. By this means, the common customs of religious and family life and commercial practice were kept alive, though the race was scattered in many countries.

NATIONALIST PERIOD
From AD 1600 Nationalism in Europe amalgamated all races who lived within given territories and emphasized national languages. During this period, the Talmud was critically studied and translated into the various national language.

CHINESE Legal System

Third earliest legal system of the world in origin (before 2500 BC) The only one that has survived continuously to date a period of more than 4000 years Note: The Chinese were described as the worlds greatest pacifists. They were patriotically exclusive and had never willingly admitted strangers. They were contented with themselves, their ancestors, their history, and with their place in the world. They survived as a people due to their strong clan and family structure and their consequent conservatism.

CHINESE Legal System (cont.)

CONFUCIUS Chinas chief justice and one of the worlds wisest men.
About 500 BC His philosophy, which is not a religion, covers the whole range of personal morality and practical politics. And for 2400 years, it pervades now Chinese life. His philosophy rests on a passionate yet rational respect for those conventions which experience of the past has verified. He teaches filial piety, which is the skillful carrying out of the wishes of our forefathers.

CHINESE Legal System (cont.)

GEORGE PADEOUXs theory of government and justice underlying the Chinese legal system:
Since the dawn of its history, China has believed in the existence of a natural order of things, or law of Nature, including all parts of the universe and adjusting them harmoniously with one another. This order of Nature was not made; it exists and is its own reason for existence. Humanity is a part of it, and must conform to it. And as the elements in this order of nature are interdependent, whatever affects one element reacts on the other also

CHINESE Legal System (cont.)

CONSEQUENCE of Padeouxs theory:

1) This natural law does not yield precedence to positive law. Positive law ought to confine itself to translating the natural law into written formulas. If this translation is correct, the written law is good and binding; but if not correct, then the written law is not binding. 2) A marked contrast of the Confucian political philosophy with Occidental systems is that its fundamental maxim is emphatically a government of men, not law.
The Chinese philosophy of government is that a good ruler makes a happy people. Chinese political science relies on the wisdom and discretion of the ruler rather than on the text of laws.

CHINESE Legal System (cont.)

LEGISTS a school of philosophers who arose after Confucius (about 200 BC).
Repudiated the doctrine of a government of men in favor of government of laws. But its dominance was brief and Confucius principle returned and was enthroned in Chinese government and firmly maintained that place during the next 2000 years.

3) Another notable consequence of the Confucian philosophy is that conciliation and mutual adjustment are looked upon as ideal elements of justice. 4) The subordinate part played by the letter of the law, and the legislation as such. The ruler should frame the laws to voice the vast sentiments and wants of the people not to impose his personal will upon an unwilling people.

CHINESE Legal System (cont.)

LIST OF CODES:
Chow Li or Regulations of Chow (1100 BC) earliest code whose text is now extant. Later, it was said to have been burnt during the Burning of the Books. Tang Dynastys code of 500 articles (AD 640) Tartar emperor Timur (grandson of Kublai Khan, about AD 1320) promulgated a code of 2500 articles.
NOTE: None of these altered traditional laws and customs of the Chinese.

CHINESE Legal System (cont.)

Kublai Khan introduced around AD 1269 an alphabet and the laws above were promulgated in this alphabet. Ming Dynasty (about AD 1400) minister Young Lo framed a new general code Manchu Dynasty Ta Tsing Lu Li or Code of Tsing became law about AD 1650 and endured until the revolution of AD 1912.
This work consists of:
First: LU (The Code Proper) the text which never changes Second: LI consists of the annual edicts and judicial decisions, which interpreted the LU, made them flexible and adapted them to progress, like the Common Law.

HINDU Legal System

Introductory:
During the last 3000 years, India had been entered and dominated by alien races:
Indo Aryans, Persians, Greeks, Turks, Mongols, English After WWII, India was granted her independence by England
Persians and Greeks took booty and left no traces Turks and Mongols brought Mohammedan law English brought unity, liberty, and honest administration, but English law in India is mainly public law, preserving in private law the various native customs Indo-Aryans or Hindus (the first to come to India) are the only race that developed a native system of law.

Two Branches of Hindu System

(A) BUDDHISM (B) BRAHMANISM (or Hinduism)

Both are religion and law.

(A) BUDDHISM
Simply means Enlightenment Founded by Gautama Buddha, born in Nepal between 600 and 500 BC. Buddhas basic teaching is the compet of Nirvana, which means roughly the peace of mind and soul that comes to man after he has overcome three cravings: those for riches, sensual enjoyment and immortality. In India, between AD 400 and 700, a complete social and religious reaction took place. Buddhism was eradicated by Brahmanistic persecution (this is questionable).

(B) BRAHMANISM

Began in the days of the first Aryan invaders as a kind of nature worship; it developed into what is certainly the most complicated theology known to mankind. It holds that one supreme being, Brahma, exists in several or manifestations and is the universal spirit which pervades everything. The typical law-book of the BrahmanHindi system is the famous Laws of Manu. The most marked peculiarity of this system was the Brahman-Hindu rules off caste.

(B) BRAHMANISM (cont.)

CASTE is the institution which makes India unique, the device breaking up Indians into fixed categories that has no approximation elsewhere in the world.
Every Hindu is born into a caste and his caste determines his religious, social, economic, and domestic life from the cradle to the grave. No man may ever leave his caste, except to be expelled. It is impossible to progress from caste to caste. Marriage between castes is foorbidden.

(B) BRAHMANISM (cont.)

19th Century India India was a congerie of hundreds of principalities; in each one ruled independently a maharajah.
The justice of the king was in theory personal. It was partly done by sending judicial officials to go on circuit, but special classes of cases were reserved for the kings personal hearing and decisions in the Audience Hall.

GREEK Legal System

Secular in origin not conceived as part of religion emanating from a divine source The Greek race emerges into history as a hundred or more local tribes, or clans, or citystates, each independent, and each based more or less on democracy. No single unified Greek nation yet. The Homeric poems, shows the king at the head; he was at once the chief priest, the chief judge and the supreme warlord. BUT he was guided by a Council of the chief men of the community whom he consulted; and the decisions of the Council and King deliberating together are brought before the Assembly of the whole people (called the Agora out of which democracy springs).

Greek Democratic Justice

Found in Homers description:

The scenes depicted on the splendid shield which Hephaestos made for Achilles in the Trojan war wherein the parties plead their cause before the assembly of freemen; the chief presides as umpire, then the wise elders, skilled in the law, propose various judgments; then the freemen acclaim the best one and thus decide the case.

Greek Democratic Justice (cont)

At Athens, the Agora, or marketplace, the Areopagus Hill, and the Pnyx Hill were the chief places of interest for law and politics. Usually, the Assembly meet on the hill called Pnyx where statesmen like Pericles delivered their speeches, under the warm blue Greek sky. Areopagus a special place for certain trials for homicide; it was also here where the Apostle Paul made his memorable address to the people of

The Trial Method

Was an advanced form of the early one in the tribal assembly, depicted by Homer on the shield. A jury list of 6000 or more names was made up. For ordinary cases: a panel of 201 names drawn by lot, may suffice. For special cases: the panel of 1000 or 1500 or 2500 jurymen

The Trial Method (cont)

System Instituted by Solon

Here, Athenian trial was entirely in the hands of nonprofessionals; Presiding magistrate selected by lot; Jurors were drafted from citizen body; Any citizen could be prosecutor and the defendant conducted his own case. Magistrates supervised the preliminary proceeding; During trial, the magistrate was no more than a chairman of a public assembly; no presiding judge to declare the law authoritatively; No appeal The citizens were the whole court judges of law and facts without control. No jury deliberation. After evidence, all casted their votes in the verdicturn.

The Trial Method (cont)

Thus, essentially JURY SYSTEM Another practice of Athenian law was to allow defendant when condemned to propose a lighter punishment than that fixed by the accuser; and the judges were required to choose one of the two sentences (like what happened with Socrates). However, it seems that the Greek had a system of justice but hardly a system of law, because: no codes, no reasoned decisions, no doctrinal treaties, no professional judges or jurist.

ROMAN Legal System

Broad Sense: Roman law refers to the entire legal order of the Roman state, from the time of the Republic to the Roman Empire.
It embraces public law, sacred law, private law and customary law.

Restricted Sense: Roman law means the private law governing private rights, interests, and transactions, excluding the public law of Rome. It is in this sense that Roman law is also known as Civil

3 Periods in the Development of Roman Law

The Archaic Period or Infancy Period from the founding of Rome to the Twelve Tables (451 BC) The Republican Period or Youth Period from the Twelve Tables to the founding of the Empire (451-30 BC) Maturity Period and Old Age or Classical Period from the founding of Empire to the death of Justinian (30 BC AD 565)

To be continued...
Discussions on the Roman Legal System onwards will be next meeting after the midterms. Midterms August 8, 2011

Coverage: All reading materials up to the Roman Legal System Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) and Essays

GOOD LUCK!

BREAK A LEG! GOD BLESS!

CELTIC Legal System

Celts or Kelts descendants of the prehistoric glacial people, who about 600 BC invaded Gaul (now France and Belgium) and the islands of Great Britain Scotland, England and Wales, and Ireland. Three Periods in the Celtic Legal System
Political Independence before Julius Caezars conquest of Gaul and Britain Surviving Branches of the Celtic Legal System the Welsh and the Irish Final Dissolution of the Welsh and the Irish

The Three Periods in the Celtic Legal System (cont .) Independence Political

Druidism acknowledged a god that delighted in bloodshed; it taught of the immortality of the soul, and inculcated the contempt of danger and death.
The Druids possessed considerable administrative power, for they kept the people in constant terror of them. They are the dispenser of justice and decide almost all disputes, both public and private.
Note how punishment may help in the administration of a community. Their power lay, not in physical or political force, but in their influence as priests of religion and magic. Since the Druids influenced the minds of the people, the Romans found no other way of securing their conquests over any of the Celtic nations than by exterminating the Druids.

The Three Periods in the Celtic Legal System (cont .) Branches of the Celtic Legal System Surviving

IRELAND
1st Period: Heroic Age and Pagan Druidism
The law is transmitted only by memory of the Brehon judges.

2nd Period: Christianity and formulation of the written rules of law, though the efforts of St. Pathric. 3rd Period: Danish and the Norman invasions gradually paralyzed all political progress, but the Brehon jurists continue to practice their law. 4th Perioid: The political ruin of Ireland is followed by the disappearance of the Brehon law.

WELSH
Welsh Code written down about AD 900 this code has traces of Roman law, specifically Justinians famous line:
Three things the law enjoys upon all: to live honestly; to cause no vexation or harm to another; and to render to every one his due.

The Three Periods in the Celtic Legal System (cont Final .) Dissolution of the Welsh
Irish

and the

The end came by force of conquest, first of Welsh. Llewellyn the Great tried to unite the Celtic tribal factions of the people and attempted to save the ancient laws of Wales through the Magna Carta. However, its final extinction was the work of the Tudor Dynasty. Henry VIII united Wales completely to England and decreed that only English laws would apply even with Wales. As to the Irish faction, in 1613, James I called an Irish parliament, and this body went through the form of declaring the Brehon law abolished.

SLAVIC Legal System

The Four Principal Slavic Nations:

Russia, the Serbs, the Bohemian (or Czech), the Polish

Four Stages in Russias Legal Evolution:

The establishment from 9th century of a ruling class of independent princes possessing all the land and controlling the people on the land. The submergence of the country (13th Cent.) by the Mongols giving new directions to govt. The emergence (16th Cent.) of the absolute rule of Moscow tsars and the final enserfment of the mass of people. The passing of the old order and the establishment of communism in 1917.

Tolstoys description of the first three stages of the legal history of Russia: Rules established by men, who have control of organized power and which are enforced against the recalcitrant by the lash, prison, and even murder.

SLAVIC Legal System (cont.)

A real legal system arrived for Russia fifty years later under the wise and conscientious Emperor Nicholas I, who authorized Michael Speransky to assemble a commission of jurists and collected and printed the materials called Svod Zakonof or collection of laws. March revolution of 1917 witnessed the transition of govt from the Russian Tsar to the Kerensky provisional govt. of the intelligentsia to the rise of the Bolsheviks, who established the communist government.

SLAVIC Legal System (cont.)

The Three Essential Facts about the Kind of Government the 1936 Constitution provided:
1st It is designed to guarantee the socialist economy. The socialization is applied only to what are called the basic means of production. (Please, see p. 74 on ownership) 2nd The Bolsheviks do not believe in what they call division of powers in their govt. Power rests into the Soviet President of the Supreme Council. 3rd The Civil Code of Soviet Russia was adopted in 1922. The very existence of a civil code in Soviet Russia is something of an anomaly, and is explained only by the fact that the abolition of private property is not yet complete.

GERMANIC Legal System

Four Stages of the Germanic Legal System:

Prehistoric Period of the Vikings & the Goths Period of Goth Migration south and west and their establishment in the provinces of the Roman empire, ending with the formation of the great Germanic empire under Charlemagne. Fusion of races and later by the localization of the law. Transformation by Roman and Papal law

GERMANIC Legal System (cont)

Germanic justice, as it emerges into history, is characterized as purely secular. The justice of the whole tribe was democratic.

The settlement of disputes between clans, was done at the assembly of the people, the Al-ting, where all the free men, armed, meet periodically, by a lunar calendar. Then the courts meet on the Hill of Laws where the parties to a dispute pleaded their causes before the assembly. Then one or more of the Law-speakers, venerable or clever men, propounded a decision; then the assembly, by their shouts, or with clash of sword on shield, approved or disapproved the proposals of the law speakers for the most steemed sort of applause was the clash of weapons.

GERMANIC Legal System (cont)

The Franks or freemen adopted a system of laws known as the Lex Salica or the Code of the Salic Franks. The Chief Difference between:

Roman Laws Salic Laws/ Laws of the Teutons

Were designed for the good of Gave great attention to securing the state as a whole. justice for the individual.

GERMANIC Legal System (cont)

Code or Edict of the Lombards where the modern idea of a trust could be traced to. AD 650 the laws of the Goths and Romans were compiled and called Forum Judicum or Fuero Juzgo. Charlemagnes first parliamentary degrees called capitularies was established and sent his personal envoys on circuit to inspect the course of justice. This personal envoys were called adjustitias faciendas, and this method served later to develop the Anglican institution of trial by jury. Emperor Maximillian in AD 1495 established the Imperial Chamber of Justice, as a central court of appeal, and provided that one-half of its sixteen judges should always be learned doctors of the new Roman law, the sun was setting on the power of the old Germanic schoeffen, or lay-judges in Germany, their last stronghold and the doom of the pure Germanic legal system was sealed.

JAPANESE Legal System

1st Period (AD 600-1200) Jushichi Kempo or Seventeen Maxims of the royal prince-regent Umayado or Shotoku Taishi.
The Seventeen Maxims of Shotoku are essentially not rules of law, but a short code of political and social morality.
Politically, they foreshadowed the consolidation of the new territories under a single royal power. Socially, they represented the adoption of Confucianism.

JAPANESE Legal System (cont.)

From 1200-1600, great feudal families grew and fought one another. The rule of the intellectuals at the palace in the capital was finally shattered by the growing power of the rich military barons, who gradually acquired a semi-independence. In the 1100s, the palace intellectuals lost their power. National sovereignty was nominally left in the person of the Emperor of Kyoto, the western capital, but the complete political power was now vested in the Regency, based on military feudal tenure, and located in the East at Kamakura.

JAPANESE Legal System (cont.)

2nd Period the Rise of the Shogunate (1192).

Minamoto Yoritomo first typical figure of this period; he sought to be named Military Regent (Shogun). He created the Monjusho (Office of Inquiry and Decision), essentially a court of justice. Jo-Yei Shikimoku (Ordinance of the period Jo Yei) a political code promulgated in AD 1225. Its main purpose was to regulate the new military-feudal regime, and it contained few rules touching private rights.

JAPANESE Legal System (cont.)

3rd Period The Tokugawa Dynasty of the Regency (1600-1850)

Regent Tokugawa Iyeyasu came into power in the early 1600s. Under the Tokugawa Dynasty, Japan reached a permanent state of political equilibrium, economic prosperity and social quiet. The Tokugawa Regency provided within its own extensive domain a model of administration for the fiefs of the greater semin-independent barons. Japan then enjoyed a complete peace, internal and external. The Tokugawa Supreme Court of Yedo was given a federal original jurisdiction, for the suits between parties from different provinces. It plays a confirmatory role in the decisions of the barons court for death sentences. Often consulted with a view to uniformity of law. Yedo laws must be followed in all provinces.

JAPANESE Legal System (cont.)

4th Period End of Japanese Seclusion and Shogunate

In 1853, Commodore Perry came with his American fleet and demanded the rights of trading. Other nations then followed. Treaties were forged, where the Japanese gladly conceded to the foreign nations the power and duty of extraterritoriality, i.e., jurisdiction over the foreign nationals, as the price for refusing general rights of settlement throughout the land. Because of the seeming subservience of the Regency to the foreign nations, the powerful semi-independent barons rebelled. Two great families or clans rose into prominence the SATSUMAS and CHOSHUS, who abolished the SHOGUNATE, and resurrected the emperor as the supreme embodiment of power. A new emperor ascended to the throne, a BOY named Mutsuhito, who was reinstated in 1868 and who signed a Charter Oath. This is now called the MEIJI RESTORATION.

JAPANESE Legal System (cont.)

In 1889, a written constitution was drafted by Count Ito, Japans greatest statesman of the last generation. Note that until its defeat in World War II, Japat had for at least a thousand years been a military state a totalitarian state, obsessed by what it conceived as a divine and imperial mission to conquer East Asia. After its unconditional surrender to the Allies in 1945, Japan has been placed under the supervision of an administrative commission set up by the Allies with the end in view, among others, of democratizing Japan.

The emperor has, however, been allowed to remain, as the symbolic head of the nation.

ANGLO-AMERICAN Legal System

(a) Common Law in England

The foundations of the Common Laws were laid during the reign of William of Normandy, but it was during the times of Henry I that the formative period of the Common law may be said to have been ushered in. Up to the time of Edward I, we see the evolution of the royal courts, whose judgments began to build up the Common Law, and the growth of procedure characterized by the use of system of writs, the introduction of inquest as a mode of trial, the beginning of written pleadings and advocacy. Writs the method by which litigation was drawn into royal tribunals.

ANGLO-AMERICAN System (cont.)

Legal

System of Equity began during the reign of Edward I when petitions to the king were referred to the Chancellor. Because of the limited jurisdiction of the common law courts, the king had to refer some cases to the Chancellor.
Some Famous Maxims of Equity.
1) He who comes to Equity must come with clean hands. 2) Equity will not suffer a wrong to be without remedy. 3) Delay defeats Equity. 4) Equity looks to the intent rather than to the form.

ANGLO-AMERICAN Legal System (cont.)

The Chief Legal Events from 17th to 19th Century or the Flowering of the Common Law System:
a) constitution developments such as the inauguration of the sovereignty of Parliaments and its transformation into a democratic body, the establishment of the doctrines of the supremacy of the law, independence of the judiciary and inviolability of civil liberties and the development of the famous writ of habeas corpus. b) the incorporation of the Law of Merchants into Common Law. c) the establishment of stare decisis as a definite rule. d) the appearance of law reports. e) the reorganization of the judicial system. f) procedural developments.

ANGLO-AMERICAN Legal System (cont.)

g) the organization of the law practitioners into a dual system. h) the appearance of other great legal figures who exercised a great influence in the development of the Common law. i) the cospomolitanization and expansion of this system. j) the beginning of the codification movement.

ANGLO-AMERICAN Legal System (cont.)

(b) Common Law in the United States

Remember that the US used to be divided into 13 colonies under the control of England. But in 1774, a Continental Congress, as representatives of the people of the colonies, declared their independence. But the Common Law had followed the English colonies. At present, except for the Louisiana, the system of jurisprudence that now prevails in the American states is that which has been derived from the Common Law of England. A decisive factor in the survival of the Common Law in America was the influence of Blackstones Commentaries. Some Famous American Legal Luminaries:
John Marshal Chief Justice of the USSC 1801-1835, the first to proclaim the doctrine of judicial supremacy. Joseph Story a prolific textbook writer, especially on Conflict of Laws. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote Common Law, an American book on legal history or philosophy.

CATHOLIC (PAPAL) Legal System and the CANON LAW

AD 800-1200 The Popes had begun to acquire a temporal authority under Pepin le Bref and Charlemagne, from the donations of territory made by those princes, and they were now gradually extending spiritual jurisdiction over all Christian kingdoms. Interchange of Roles:

Kings, dukes, and counts neglected their temporal duties and shut themselves up in cloister, and spent their lives in prayers and penance. Ecclesiastics were employed in all the departments of secular govt, and they alone conducted all public measures and state negotiations, which of course, they directed to the great objects of advancing the interests of the church, and establishing the paramount authority of the Holy See.

CATHOLIC (PAPAL) Legal System and the CANON LAW (cont.)

Pope Nicholas I (AD 859) proclaimed to the whole world his

paramount judgment in appeal from the sentences of all spiritual judicatories; power of assembling councils of the Church, and of regulating it by the canons of those councils; the right of exercising his authority by legates in all the kingdoms of Europe, and the control of the Pope over all princes and governors.

CATHOLIC (PAPAL) Legal System and the CANON LAW (cont .) Otho the Great received the Imperial crown from In AD 961,
the Pope. Thus, from that time on, the Emperors were considered as the temporal head, while the Popes as spiritual head, of all Christendom.
All Christian countries seemed to have been included in one grand republic.

The Contest between the Church and the Empire began with Henry IV, emperor of Germany and Pope Gregory VII.
The Pope here sought to raise the spiritual above the temporal authority in all the states of Europe.

Innocent III at the beginning of the 13th century established the powers of the Popedom on a settled basis, a positive acknowledgment of the papal supremacy, or the right principalitier et finaliter to confer the imperial crown.
Without the Popes approval, no emperor may be recognized as legitimate. Its clergy were immune from the criminal justice of the state. Legislation covered the cradle to the grave.

CATHOLIC (PAPAL) Legal System and the CANON LAW (cont .) of Isidore of AD 800s, papal supreme jurisdiction Decretals

was re-enforced here. Decretum of Gratian where Canon law originated. Composed of the legislation and decisions of Popes, after accumulating for seven centuries in thousands of separate decrees, rescripts, bulls, and council-resolutions. Compiled by a monk named Gratian at the University of Bologna in AD 1140.
This created Canon (or papal) law as an independent system. This has become a strong legal support in the Popes rivalry with the Emperors. Canon law began to be taught and became the legal buttress of the papal theocracy and remained the ruling code till the Reformation. Under the Roman state, the religious laws the jus sacrum, jus pontificium were not a distinct body of legislation. The Church encroached more and more upon the jurisdiction of the civil courts.

CATHOLIC (PAPAL) Legal System and the CANON LAW (cont Three.) Parts of the Decretum ofr Gratian:
1st Distinctiones: treats of the sources of canon law, councils and the mode of their convention, the authority of decretals, the election of the Roman pontiff, the election and consecration of bishops, the papal prerogative, papal legates, the ordination of the clergy, clerical celibacy, and kindred topics. 2nd Causae: discusses different questions of procedures, such as the ordination and trial of bishops and the lower clergy, excommunication, simony, clerical and church property, marriage, heresy, magic and penance. 3rd is devoted to the sacraments of the eucharist and baptism and the consecration of churches.

CATHOLIC (PAPAL) Legal System and the CANON LAW (cont .) Juris Canonici a series Corpus

of collections, which constitutes the official body of canon law, composed of the following: Gratians Decretum, Gregory IXs Decretales, the Sext, the Clementines, and the Extravagantes of John XXII.
The canon law attempted the task of legislating in detail all phases of human life clerical, ecclesiastical, social, domestic. The Church has not only its own code and its specifically religious penalties, but also its own prisons. The canon law justified wars against the enemies of religion and the persecution of heretics.

CATHOLIC (PAPAL) Legal System and the CANON LAW (cont .) Rise of Patriotic Nationality and
Legislative Independence throughout the West of Europe:
The reign of Edward I (AD 1300) was marked by the rise of nationalism and unified legislation. Subsequently, the Reformers like Luther and Calvin raised their voices in protest against the legalistic tyranny of the Pope. At Wittenberg in 1520, Luther threw a copy of the canon law, the one representing the infallibility of the pope.

CATHOLIC (PAPAL) Legal System and the CANON LAW (cont .) of Trent attended by over Council

300 bishops, ambassadors, cardinals, and other delegates. It covered 18 years. Its legislation ranged over the whole system of Canon Law. But by the time this Council ended, the Protestant seceders had broken the churchs universal power. The national secular law in each country of Europe was thenceforth to become supreme and exclusive. The temporal jurisdiction of the papal courts was in time abolished by the various national legislatures.
Notable here was the break of England under King Henry VIII from the Roman Catholic Church. The King is the only supreme in earth of the church of England.

CATHOLIC (PAPAL) Legal System and the CANON LAW (cont .)Juris Canonici was promulgated by Codex
Pope Benedict XV in May 27, 1917. This work, unlike the old Corpus Juris Canonici, is not a compilation, but a genuine codification one of the modern worlds greatest masterpieces of composition. Second Vatican Council was opened by Pope John XXIII on January 25, 1959 and opened the Church to the world. The same Council revisited the old Code and in 1977, Pope Paul VI started the formulation of the new Code. And on January 25, 1983, Pope John Paul II promulgated the present Code of Canon Law, which has the force of laws for the whole Latin Church.

MOHAMMEDAN Legal System

Is based on Islam, founded by Mohammed (or Mahomet) on AD 600. Not Mohammedanism but Islam meaning submission to one God.

Islam aspired to be a comprehensive system of human life and social order religion, morality, politics, and law. Islams basis: Revelation, respects Hebrew traditions of reverence for Moses and Abraham, mission of Jesus of Nazareth. Central Thought in the Teaching of Mahomet: There is no God but the true God and Mahomet is his prophet.

MOHAMMEDAN Legal System (cont.)

Sources of Islamic Law:

1st the Koran (literally the book which ought to be read) or word of God, as written down by Mohammed; 2nd the sayings and conduct of Mohammed; 3rd the treaties of jurist, elaborately developing from those fundamentals the legal rules applicable to all the affairs of life.

The end

God bless you!