Summary Ch.3
An Introduction to Law and Legal Institutions

Every country needs a set of rules that should be forced on people to regulate their behavior. This is what LAW is. Back in the years, in medieval Europe, the king had the power to initiate any law, what happened is that the king would choose a set of social norms ( laws of nature) and try to enforce some of them. So, over the years, with many of the King’s laws on crimes, property, and so on, the present court and judges take those cases into consideration to try and give a justified sentence to similar cases. In short, if the two parties are disagreeing on what the law is, and a similar dispute has been solved in the past, then the common thing to do is to follow the past precedent. This is called ‘the Common law’. To mention some of the countries that use the common law, they are England, U.S, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and etc. However the issue is different in France, where in the revolutionaries believed that the king where corrupt and worth nothing so they killed him, and thus abolishing the common law in France. Another major law is the ‘Civil Law’, also called the ‘Napoleon Code’. The two laws differ in how the much the Judge is evolved in the sentencing. For example, in the Common Law the judge has no authority to direct any questions to either side of the party in a court room. That will be the lawyer’s job to do and the judge should be neutral. On the other hand, in the Civil Law, the judge has an active role in being evolved in directing as many questions as he wants, and engaging in arguments. The lawyer’s job here is to respond to the judge’s questions. Another difference is the use of juries. The juries are used constantly in the common law to give the final sentencing of whether the defendant is guilty or not. In 1966, England has abolished the jury in all the trial; however