02 Legal Systems of the World
- Bicameral system: A parliament with two chambers; in federal systems one represents the people, the other the member states.
- Checks and balances: The mutual control of legislature, executive and judiciary, typical of the presidential system.
- Civil law: Legal system based on codified law; courts apply the codes (also called statute law system).
- Codification: The systematic collection of the law in codes.
- Common law: Legal system in which the law develops largely through court decisions (also called case law system).
- Customary law: Unwritten law that has developed through long practice and is accepted as binding.
- Direct democracy: Citizens decide on laws and constitutional amendments themselves, by referendum and initiative.
- Directive: EU act that sets a result which the member states must transpose into national law (harmonisation).
- Federal state: A state whose member states (cantons, states) have their own constitutions, parliaments, governments and courts.
- Judicial review: The power of courts to refuse to apply a law that violates the constitution.
- Mixed legal system: A country in which two or more legal systems apply side by side.
- Muslim law: Legal system derived from the religious sources of Islam (Sharia).
- Precedent: An earlier court decision that binds later courts in similar cases (stare decisis).
- Primary law: The founding treaties of the EU.
- Regulation: EU act that applies directly in every member state (unification).
- Secondary law: EU law adopted by the institutions on the basis of the treaties: regulations, directives, decisions.
- Supranational organisation: An organisation to which states have transferred part of their sovereignty, so that it can make law binding on them and their citizens; the EU.
02 Legal Systems of the World
