To understand the court system however, one must first define exactly what law is as well as where and how different courts function. Laws set the rules by which a society's people act and interact with each other. The law is a set of rules that the government lays down to bind all members of the state, including those in the government. The court is responsible for interpreting these laws and deciding which have precedence in conflict. The courts must fairly judge all citizens of the state, including those in government, even though the court itself is a part of this government. The legal systems of a state form the basis of law and negotiation in that state.
Though all courts exist for the same general purpose, there are different kinds of court. Anglo-Saxon case law is the legal system that most Americans and Canadians are familiar with. This system, developed in England primarily in the late Middle Ages, emphasizes the court's independence from other parts of government. The cases that this court decides set precedents for future decisions, so, to some extent, case law actually shares the duty of making laws. However, court decisions are based on statues passed by the government, such as the constitution, not just precedents, and the government is the final authority on the law. Judges and lawyers involved in case law receive their training in special schools which are kept separate from the rest of a university. In a case law court, a judge's main task is to find the “proper law” as needs change over time, requiring flexibility in existing laws. Additionally, the judge is supposed to be a passive listener to opposing arguments and then rule on behalf of the law.
The law, fortunately, protects a state's people against the extreme power held by the government. This is seen in laws such as the right of habeus corpus, which states that an individual may not be held without being charged for over twenty-four hours. There are a small number of states who have adopted the case law system - mostly former British colonies, but for everyone else, there is European code law, which, rather than seeing law as something relatively independent of the government, sees it more as an instrument of this government. Code law, unlike case law, is not based on precedents nearly as much, and in this system, legal officials are just another type of civil servant who receive their education with everyone else. The main distinctions between the way the two courts see law is seen primarily in criminal cases.
In code law, the judge may directly participate in an argument, question witnesses, and occasionally, actually direct the police investigation. There is no presumption of someone's guilt or innocence because the court's job is to decide the most probable truth in the case. This seems to work well considering there are no laws set to protect an accused individual. Finally, there is religious law, or the sharia, which makes up the legal systems of many Islamic states. Where this traditional law is used, it is always combined with elements of Western law, but focuses on obligations, to God and other people, rather than on entitlements or rights.
As stated above, case law and code law are not opposites and differ mostly by degree rather than extreme opposition. Case law is not actually made by judges and the judges of code law do not fully ignore the precedent. At this day and age, many code law systems have actually adopted protections for individuals against a state's abuse, and are continuously evolving to look more like a case law system. The differences that do remain are gradually being overridden by the similar conditions transcending most modern industrialized states. A common element of all courts is that they are at least somewhat separate from other political power sources. They may be organized by jurisdiction, but they are primarily separated for different kinds of law - criminal, civil, and constitutional. Criminal law exists for those charged with disobeying the laws which lay down proper conduct. Civil law regulates relations among people, and constitutional law is that which involves the political process and making sure all laws remain consistent with the constitution. The End.
