Christina Woodhouse, age 15, of E1 Paso, Tex., for her question:
WHEN WAS THE FIRST SYSTEM OF LAWS ESTABLISHED?
Law is the body of rules that have been drawn up that make it possible for men to live together in a society. Law is enforced by various governments through police forces and courts. The world's earliest system of laws was established in about 1700 B.C. by the King of Babylon, Hsmmurabi.
Hammurabi's system was a complete list of laws called a code. It simply defined personal rights, property rights and contracts.
The actual purpose of law is to outline and clearly state the relation between individuals and between the individual and his society. A law attempts to give each person as much freedom of action as fits in with the liberty of others. Laws are developed from the customs of a people.
At first the force of government behind customs made them into laws. Then the laws later grew from decisions made by courts and from books in which lawyers wrote what they had learned.
It wasn't long until laws were set down in order 1n statute books or codes by kings or legislatures.
The ancient Romans were great lawmaking citizens. The law books of Emperor Justinian, who lived from A.D. 527 until 565, gave a summary of more than 1,000 years of their working out of laws.
The church largely governed the action of the people during the early Middle Ages. A body of regulations called the canon law came out of this period.
By the 12th Century the Roman law was studied in Italy and it gradually spread to the rest of Europe. A body of laws, based on Roman law, developed into what is called the civil law in contrast with the canon law.
About this same time a body of laws called the common law grew up from the decisions of the courts in England.
In 1804 under Napoleon, the civil law, as it had been established in France, was codified or reduced to one book covering the whole.
Napoleon's code was copied in many parts of Europe as well as in Central and South America. It also traveled to the Canadian province of Quebec and to Louisiana.
The civil law is used as the basis of law on the continent of Europe, except for the Scandinavian countries and the U.S.S.R. In the places settled by the French, Spanish, Portuguese and the Dutch, the law is also based on the civil law system. Scotland received the civil law in the 16th Century.
The common law system prevails in England, Ireland, Australia, Now Zealand, the United States (except Lousiana) and Canada (except Quebec).
The common law grew up from the decisions of the king's courts. The decisions were based on customs, but where there ware no established customs, the courts had to find the law by applying reason to what had already bean established.
The court followed the example of previous decisions in similar cases.