Civil Law

Civil law (or civilian law) is a legal system whose primary feature is that laws are written into a collection, codified, and not (as in common law) interpreted by judges. A civil law system has collective thoughts, guidelines and general principles and therefore holds legislation as the main source of law.

A judiciary in such a legal system would be comprised of judges that have been trained in the codices of the law, and would have minimal abilities of interpretation of the law. Juries would not be used, except in cases were lay judges may act along legally trained career judges.

The principle of civil law is to provide all citizens with an accessible and written collection of the laws which apply to them and which judges must follow.