Common law vs. civil law

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Common Law & Social Progress

Common law, simply put, are rules of doing and living within a culture or social group that is known to be the rules by members of said social system but is not codified or written down. Common law thus are developed traditions, utilized and practiced by people based on the lessons of the past and carried on to the present because of their essentiality in keeping tradition and cultural identities, including mores and beliefs. The School of Law of the University of California at Berkeley (2013) explains common law and its difference with civil law as follows:

"Common law is generally unmodified. This means that there is no comprehensive compilation of legal rules and statutes. While common law does rely on some scattered statutes, which are legislative decisions, it is largely based on precedent, meaning the judicial decisions that have already been made in similar cases. These precedents are maintained over time through the records of the courts as well as historically documented in collections of case law ...