GENERAL INTRODUCTION

THE COMPARED JURISDICTIONS

This book is aimed at analysing how court decisions (precedents) function as a source of law in various jurisdictions. It compares jurisdictions from all over the world, from different legal families and with diverse legal traditions. Only the contribution from England and Wales represents a ‘pure’ common law jurisdiction. South Africa represents a mixed jurisdiction with a fairly new constitution. Traditional civil law jurisdictions are represented by the French legal family (Brazil, France and Italy) and the German legal family (Germany). The Nordic legal family is represented by Sweden. China and Russia are civil law systems that display interesting new developments.

The contributions provide stimulating materials for comparison since they are similar, yet different enough for a comparative analysis. Such similarities and differences comprise, for example, their traditional and modern attitudes towards precedent, their court systems as well as their division of the roles of the judiciary and the legislature.

WHY PRIVATE LAW?

This book focuses on private law. This is a particularly interesting area of law to compare for two reasons. First, precedents are less controversial in private law as the democratic deficit is less significant compared to other areas of law. Second, statutory private law often needs to be supplemented and developed by precedents due to a need to fill gaps or to interpret abstract statutory texts.