Civil law has a long history, dating all the way back to Roman times, and remains the dominant legal tradition in many countries including Central and South America and most of Europe. Civil law tradition was gathered into a comprehensive summary including all facets of Roman law by the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century, but this was based on centuries of Roman tradition. It became the basis of what we call civil law today.

In the United States, common law is what most people think of when they think of law. Common law is adversarial, whereas civil law is inquisitorial. In civil law, judges do not interpret the law, thus creating "case law," or a history of judgments. In the United States, in civil law, the judges look at the facts and determine how the facts compare to established laws. Since civil law is not the prominent legal system...
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