Understanding Civil Law: Structure, Content, and Key Areas
Civil Law: Private Rights and Legal Framework
Civil Law is the cornerstone of private rights, regulating relationships between individuals. Its origins trace back to Roman Law, particularly the work of Justinian and later commentators. Since the 18th century, Civil Law has focused on regulating individual life, encompassing personality rights, legal capacity, and actions.
Systematization of Civil Law
Following the Gaius system, later adopted by the Napoleonic Code and German Pandectists, Civil Law is structured into five main sections:
- General Part: Covers fundamental legal concepts like the rule of law, sources of law, and subjective rights.
- Real Rights: Deals with rights related to property and possessions.
- Rights of Obligations: Governs legal relationships between individuals, including contracts.
- Family Law: Regulates family matters, marriage, and ethical conduct within the family, now also influenced by constitutional and regional law.
- Inheritance Law: Determines the distribution of assets after a person’s death, including probate and intestate succession.
Key Areas within Civil Law
The Individual and Legal Transactions
Civil Law extensively addresses the individual, their legal capacity, and various manifestations. It also examines legal transactions, a core concept in understanding legal interactions.
Property and Obligations
The study of rights related to things (Res) and the legal relationships between individuals (Law of Obligations and Contracts) forms a significant part of Civil Law.
Family and Succession
Family Law deals with family structures and formalities, while Inheritance Law governs the transfer of assets upon death, encompassing both testate and intestate succession.
Labor Law: Protecting Workers’ Rights
Labor Law emerged from the need to regulate labor relations during the Industrial Revolution. It aims to protect workers, considered the weaker party in employment contracts. Labor Law spans both public and private law, regulating the employer-employee relationship and its effects, with a fundamental purpose of state regulation.
Key aspects of Labor Law include:
- Regulation of employment contracts for the provision of professional services.
- Recognition of collective agreements as a source of law, involving unions in the regulatory process.
Commercial Law: Regulating Trade and Business
Commercial Law, while part of private law, incorporates public law elements due to state intervention in the market economy. It presupposes a free market and the free flow of trade. Its main tasks are:
- Establishing the legal status of companies.
- Regulating acts and legal transactions qualified as acts of trade.
Spanish Commercial Law, codified in 1886, has been modified and supplemented by numerous laws. Globalization has led to a trend of consolidation in Commercial Law, both within the European Union and globally. Civil Law acts as a subsidiary to Commercial Law in areas not specifically regulated.