In implementing a system of law to be used for gluing together the social compact of a country and providing some measure of assurance of safety and fair treatment for its citizens, the specific questions which arise in regards to various areas of life must be considered alongside larger issues of the general philosophical approach to be taken in the drafting of such laws. One of the basic philosophical issues related to the creation of laws is that of the relative importance to be granted to the primacy of abstract principles in operating a system of law versus that of the importance of an approach based on applied experience. A system of law based on the concept of the former such approach is referred to as civil law, while one which is based on a system defined along the latter lines is known as a system of common law. Institutions of common laws can be found most prominently as embodied in the legal cultures of practice and principle of the United States and the United Kingdom. Other countries where systems based on common law can be found in effect in many of the nations that at one time were under the sway of the United Kingdom during its tenure of supremacy in administering the British Empire.
Common Laws
April 10th, 2010Civil Laws
April 10th, 2010In the formulation of the system of rules and regulations which is intended to knit a civil society together and guarantee the safety and well-being of its citizens, an essential question to be taken up for consideration for the drafters of such a system is the issue of whether the emphasis and principal methodology of the system of law should consist of an adherence to abstract principle or of a more loosely, flexibly defined system based on the application of decision-making tools to prior experience with cases. In the case of the United States and the United Kingdom, the latter such approach largely holds sway over the conducting of the system of law, which is referred to as common law. Another general type of approach for setting up a legal system is represented by the category referred to as civil law, which falls into the former type of relying on abstract ideals over applied experience as the key to its conception of the functioning of the legal system. The systems which are understood to embrace the definition of civil laws are also related to each other in being commonly descended from the principles of Roman law, and in general have been found as working legal systems in such areas of the world as Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Gun Laws
April 10th, 2010The gun laws which exist in the United States are notable for the controversy which has attended their creation and enforcement, and the complexity which has arisen in the system due to the latitude granted to states in the enforcement of law. The basic foundation for the existence of gun laws within the United States is formed by the existence of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which grants wide rights in regard to the exercise of gun ownership within the United States and links such rights to the maintenance of a secure citizenry and a functioning civil society, as had been seen in the recent gain of independence through armed action against the forces of the King of England.