Lawyers must be conscious of the written style, voice, and tone used in legal documents and communications, ensuring that it is suitable for a variety of audiences such as judges, courts, and clients.

To become an influential legal writer, lawyers must hone their ability to be confident, reliable, and persuasive in all of their written work. However, not all of them have such skills, especially those who are on the way to becoming lawyers. Nevertheless, students can get help with law papers from the writing service. In order to find the best one, read the reviews here – URL. They have full information about different writing sites.

Definition of legal writing

When it comes to navigating the legal world, having a well-crafted document is essential. Legal writing consists of briefs, memorandums, contracts, motions, and much more that help to convey your message in the clearest way possible. This type of writing ensures accuracy when dealing with sensitive topics related to laws or regulations.

As legal writing has the purpose of persuading, its tone and style can vary depending on who you are addressing. As a legal writer, it is imperative to be able to adapt your language from legalese for judges or officials to plain language when speaking with clients. Even if one does not consider themselves a writer by profession, possessing strong legal writing skills is essential in all professions within the field – including paralegals, lawyers, and secretaries.

Tips to help you with legal writing

Tip 1: Identify your intent and objectives

Before you start your legal writing project, it’s essential to ask yourself why you’re doing this. What goal are you trying to achieve? Depending on the purpose of your document -whether it be informing, persuading, or evaluating- your text structure, tone, and voice must also change accordingly.

Knowing exactly what outcome is desired from this piece will help ensure that you create a persuasive and effective work. So far as tips go for successful legal writing: understand the motive behind yours before anything else!

Tip 2: Ascertain your audience

Knowing who you are composing for will influence the tone and structure of your work. When considering your audience, consider their place in life, age group, income level, economic standing, educational background, and principles, as well as how much they already know about what is being written about.

All these elements will assist you in deciding the appropriate tone & style needed along with the amount of detail that should be incorporated into your writing – whether it’s a judge or an opposing attorney, or just a client.

Tip 3: delve deep into your research

Before beginning to write, read through all materials provided in order to gain a comprehension of the associated legal implications. When crafting effective legal documents, it is essential that you complete thorough research and incorporate pertinent legal precedents accordingly.

Every legal situation and set of documents requires a unique approach, but if you remember, some essential rules for successful legal research outcomes are ensured. Valuable tools to utilize include FastCase, CourtListener, and Legal Information Institute.

Depending on your specific writing task at hand, additional secondary sources such as academic journals, law reports, and even legal dictionaries may be fundamental in establishing both persuasive and mandatory authority. Therefore utilizing these assets can ensure success when conducting comprehensive legal research!

Tip 4: Develop an outline

To hone your legal writing abilities, one of the most useful strategies is to begin by organizing your research into an outline. Constructing a comprehensive and effective outline will aid in arranging your thoughts and maintaining focused control over what you are writing.

Create it wisely with the main points at its forefront, then include supporting details that naturally flow together with well-connected transitions between ideas. Once you have established this structure for yourself, legal writing tasks become far less complicated and intimidating!

Tip 5: Get writing

Despite having a comprehensive outline at hand, starting the writing process can be an intimidating task. Even experienced legal writers may struggle with writer’s block from time to time. Don’t worry about producing perfect content on your first attempt, though; that is what revising and proofreading is for!

When writing your first draft, ensure the information is comprehensive and relevant. Make sure the content transitions logically throughout. Allow yourself plenty of time to craft a strong piece by taking breaks in between drafts before submitting it for review. Additionally, do not worry about getting every detail perfect—you can refine them on subsequent edits!

Tip 6: Pay attention to content structure

Crafting an effective article? Start with a strong introduction that explains the topic and its importance. Then, highlight your most powerful arguments to build your case while filtering in supporting evidence afterward.

Incorporate headings throughout the piece to transition from one point to another; be sure to begin each section with a summary sentence for extra clarity. Finally, consider using lists or bullets when appropriate – it’s an excellent way of making content easier to scan for readers!

Conclusion

Legal writing has a distinct set of rules and guidelines that must be followed in order to ensure success. By following the tips provided here, you can give yourself the best chance possible of having your work read, understood, and appreciated by its intended audience – whether they are judges, opposing attorneys, or just everyday clients!

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The characteristics of the regulations

The chronology provided by various historians has shown that there have been two classes of Roman Law, including the Private and Public regulations. The Private one was in control of the trade and anything related to work. Whereas the Public law held the rights of the residents of the empire. According to many experts, Roman Law has become one of the strongest legal documents in the entire history of law.  

The significance of the regulations was that they had several aspects, including living an honest, honorable, and dedicated life, keeping the traditions of the territory, formalities, and realistic ways of life. People who followed those rules were considered the honorable residents of the Roman era. It was a key factor to live an honest and unharmful life, as by doing so, the residents were following the law and keeping the discipline. And those who would violate the laws would be punished and made to correct their ways of life. 

Even though the Roman Law has changed with centuries, the main aspect was the same, to keep the traditions. Roman law may have developed, but the practice of law was embedded in the practices that forewent it. Keeping the formalities of the regulations allowed the residents to guide the creation of standards or procedures practical in additional issues, bypassing random variations of the regulation. Success is described in the seriousness covering the action of distributing justice.

Another important thing to keep in mind was to be real to anything that happened. It was necessary to keep the real mind whenever the laws were not able to determine the point. Additionally, keeping the individual characteristics of the law, it was shown that precise differences were made between the social and the honorable types of law. The Roman law has shown us that it is directed to the precision of the determination of the points that meet the ideas of the regulations.

Keeping the traditions

As we have already mentioned above, keeping the traditional aspects was very essential for the Roam Law. All the customs and traditions were passed from generation to generation. Although it was not remarked in a written form, the word of mouth did its job perfectly. And after the 3rd century BC, the Roman Laws started to become in written form as well. Those written laws were called the laws of the twelve tables. 

Thanks to those laws, the regulations of the Roman empire became very organized. The authorities of the Roman era were chosen every year. They were ought to follow the rules and regulations of the Roman Law and were responsible for any offense or violation to the court. One of the regulations for the authorities was that they were not paid as it was their honorable duty.

In addition to the Roman Law, there was also the common law, which was founded in England. It was also called Anglo-Saxon Law, which had the basis in Roman law. In this particular law, the ownership is represented via judicial conclusions, which in issues of mysteriousness must be limited by courts.

With the changes of the centuries, Roman law has started to change and develop. Therefore, from the beginning of the 11th century, it was generally transformed by the Catholic Church. During this period, Roman law became an academic foundation and still is to this day. 

The stability of Roman Law in our days

Whenever historians and academics talk about Roman law, it becomes clear that it is a very demanded subject in most of the academies of the western part. The reason behind having an attorney, custody, magistrates, senate, etc., comes from Roman law. Roman law has been one of the most essential and fundamental factors of the entire legal system all over the world. With the help of the Roman Law, things became more structured and kept their foundations to this day. There were, of course, many dangerous and strange laws as well. Luckily, they are not part of today’s regulations. 

The bottom line

The legal procedures of the Roman period are very complex, detailed, and intricate. That is why it is highly required to do a lot of analysis and research, and comprehend the changes and modifications of each period of those changes. While many things have changed since the introduction of the Roman legal system, the idea of ​​the system generally remains the same.

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The term “Law of the European Union” is used since the early 1990s, with the advent of the European Union, before that established legal array was referred to as “the law of the European Communities”, “European Community law”, although the latter notion is not equivalent to the concept of “European Union law”. Some scholars see the concept of “European Union law” as synonymous with the broader concept of “European law,” used in a narrower sense.

The central link, the core of the law of the European Union and the law of the European Communities is the law of the European Community (EU law). The core, the supporting structure of EU law is the principles of EU law – the basic provisions of the most general nature that define the meaning, content, implementation and development of all other rules of EU law.

The principles of EU law are divided into functional and general principles of EU law. Functional principles include the principle of supremacy of EU law and the principle of direct effect of EU law. The principle of the supremacy of EU law means the priority of EU law over the norms of national legislation of member States, the norms of national law of member States must not contradict the norms of EU law. The principle of the direct applicability of EU law means the direct application of EU law in the territory of member States, the validity of Community law without any transformation into the legal order of a member State. These principles have been developed in the Court’s practice by interpreting the organization’s constituent instruments. General principles of the EU law include the principle of protection of individual rights and freedoms, the principle of legal certainty, the principle of proportionality, the principle of non-discrimination, the principle of subsidiarity, and a number of procedural principles.

European Union law has an original system of sources. The forms (sources) of EU law constitute an integral system of sources, with an inherent hierarchy of acts. The system of European Union law sources includes two groups of acts – primary law acts and secondary law acts.

Primary law acts include all the founding treaties of the European Union. By their legal nature, primary law acts are international treaties. The norms of primary law have higher legal force than all other norms of the European Union contained in secondary law.

The peculiarity of the European Union is that it is based on several international treaties of a constituent nature. First of all, this is the Treaty of Paris establishing the EEU in 1951, the Treaty of Rome establishing the EU in 1957, the Treaty of Rome establishing the Euratom in 1957, the Maastricht Treaty on European Union in 1992, the so-called “constituent treaties in the narrow sense”. These treaties are “constitutive” of the European Union. The “founding treaties in the broad sense” usually include all the aforementioned acts, as well as international treaties amending and supplementing them: the Brussels Treaty Establishing a Single Council and a Single Commission of the European Communities (Merger Treaty) of 1965, the Budget Treaty of 1970, the Budget Treaty of 1975, The Single European Act of 1986, the Treaty of Amsterdam amending the Treaty on European Union, the Treaties establishing the European Communities and a series of related acts of 1997. The Conference of the Member States, which ended in Nice on December 11, 2000, approved another set of amendments to the founding treaties of the Union (the Nice Treaty of 2001). These changes were finalized on February 14, 2001.

Secondary law acts include acts issued by the institutions of the Union, as well as all other acts adopted on the basis of founding treaties. In determining the sources of secondary law, we observe the clash of approaches to the understanding of sources in the continental and Anglo-Saxon legal families (recognition of jurisdictional acts as sources), as well as the influence of the concept of sources in international law.

The secondary law of the European Union has as its sources different categories of law-making forms. The first category of secondary law acts are normative acts, these include regulations, directives, framework decisions, general decisions of the EEU, recommendations of the EEU. The second category is individual acts, which include decisions (other than general decisions of the EEOC). The third category is recommendatory acts, which include recommendations (other than EEOC recommendations) and opinions. The next category of secondary law acts are the acts on the coordination of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, as well as the Police and Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters. This category of acts includes principles and common guidelines, common position, joint action, and common strategy. A separate category of acts are jurisdictional acts – decisions of the Court. Sources of secondary law include sui generis acts – “unofficial” forms of law, non-statutory acts issued by Union bodies (usually expressed as a decision of a particular body or resolution). The last category of secondary law sources can be designated as international acts, it includes decisions and acts of representatives of member states, conventions between member states concluded on the basis of constituent treaties, international treaties of the European Union.

The peculiarity of the European Union also determines the structural features of the law of the European Union. The structure of the law of the European Union consists of several interrelated elements. Elements of this structure are the founding treaties of the European Union, provisions on human rights and fundamental freedoms, rules adopted under the CFSP and the PCA, as well as the law of the European Communities.

In European Union law today there are trends of codification and improvement (Enforcement). The 2001 Laakene Declaration, adopted at the Summit of Heads of State/Government of the Member States in the European Council, emphasizes the need to reform the sources of primary and secondary law of the European Union, to simplify legal forms and to create, on the basis of the founding treaties of the European Union and the 2000 Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, a full-fledged constitution of the European Union.

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Main Trends and Stages in the Development of the National State and Law in Modern Times

The main content of this stage of human evolution is the worldwide expansion of liberal-industrial civilization, which destroyed the subsistence economy, the traditional way of life of class society and feudal absolutism. In their place, industrial civilization has brought:

• A market economy based on freedom of enterprise, private property, and competition;
• civil society as a community of free and equal citizens;
• liberal democracy with the idea of supreme rule of the people, parliamentary system and inalienability of natural human and civil rights;
• nation-state as a political organization of power, expressing not the class, caste, but the national interests of all citizens living on its territory and identifying themselves with it through the institution of citizenship
• A national legal system based on the conventional nature of legal norms, as opposed to tradition, which operate throughout the country and are universal and equal scales of freedom and justice for all citizens.

The market economy, which marked the beginning of industrial civilization, fundamentally changed the principles of organization of state power and administration, as well as the mechanism of legal regulation, creating the conditions for the formation of economic and political democracy. Based on the principles of private property and freedom of enterprise, the market economy has been more effective in the use of such qualities of human nature as personal gain, the desire to get rich, competition, organically related to the constant improvement of the tools of labor. On the basis of the technological superiority associated initially with the creation of manufactory, i.e. production with the division of manual labor, and then the introduction of a system of machines – factories, industrial civilization proved its advantage in the struggle with the traditional agrarian system of the East and with the medieval way of life that remained in the West, and defeated them. Thanks to the Great Geographical Discoveries all the peoples of the globe were included in the unified process of world development.

The development of private property, competition and competitiveness in all spheres of life radically transformed the social order and the social organization of society. The principle of class hierarchy, characteristic of traditional society, was abolished, and the principle of formal equality of citizens before the law and courts was proclaimed. There was a transition from the personally dependent relationship of suzerainty-vassalage to individual freedom, which is the basis of civil society – a set of free and equal citizens who realize their daily needs outside and without state interference. Civil society and the market economy formed a new model of social stratification based on economic inequality while declaring the principle of equality. The economic power of the first two estates – the feudal landowners and the clergy – was declining, but they had political and spiritual power. On the contrary, the new rich (industrialists, merchants) from the common people, called the bourgeoisie (the third estate), were rapidly getting richer and demanded greater rights and participation in the government of the state. The resistance of the feudal nobility to the growing political power of the third estate was broken as a result of the bourgeois revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries. They resulted in the overthrow of kings and emperors and the transformation of the bourgeoisie into a politically ruling class that now determined state policy.

The political system of industrial society is based on the principle of popular sovereignty, the right of citizens to elect their representatives, the separation of powers into legislative (parliament), executive (government) and judicial, independent of each other. Absolutist monarchies, emperors’ personal omnipotence give way to a state governed by the rule of law. The rule of law is associated with the constitutional recognition of the supremacy of human and civil rights and freedoms as the highest value and the obligation of the state and its bodies to guarantee the protection of natural human rights by acting strictly within the framework of the law. Binding by law is equally binding on the state and the individual. The new classes of industrial society – the industrial proletariat and the bourgeoisie – to protect and express their interests can create political parties, which, if they win general elections and come to power, have the right to formulate the political course of the government. Public and professional organizations and social movements also become active subjects of political life, influencing the process of making political decisions and normative acts.

Upon coming to power, the European bourgeoisie replaced Catholicism with an entirely different ideology – liberalism, which radically changed the idea of man’s place in the world, the purpose of the state and law. Its foundations are rooted in the ideals of the Renaissance, which asserted the self worth and individuality of man, who deserves respect and veneration by virtue of his active and creative origin. In keeping with the philosophy of humanism, as well as the God-given nature of existing crafts (Protestantism), liberal notions of the state as a social contract concluded to ensure the inalienable natural rights and freedoms of citizens, and the right as a universal and equal scale of freedom for every individual were formed. Relying on the theory of natural law, the ideologues of the emerging bourgeoisie argued that every person is endowed by birth with fundamental and inalienable rights: the right to life, liberty, property, and dignity, which no one can alienate. Human rights, based on formal equality, became the main value guideline of social development, which greatly influenced the nature of the state, limiting its omnipotence and facilitating the establishment of democratic interaction between the state and the individual. The formation of the rule of law during the New Age would have been impossible without the assertion of human rights in the public consciousness and political practice.

The ideology of liberalism as the ideological banner of the nascent bourgeoisie defended freedom of enterprise, parliamentary system, universal suffrage and the human right to free expression of his thoughts. The idea of human rights and freedoms seems central to liberalism. Every person has a claim to a certain amount of material and spiritual goods, to which the state and society must contribute. The volume of these benefits has historically been determined by the position of the individual in the social structure of society in the system of material production, in the hierarchy of power. These benefits, which are granted to the individual, can be called human rights. The guarantee of these rights is possible under the conditions of legal statehood, which is based on the idea of limited government and the priority of the values of individual freedom. During the New Age there was a transition from the class law, where the scope of rights and freedoms depended on the class affiliation of an individual, to the formal, bourgeois law, which proclaimed the legal equality of citizens, and the formation of national legal systems. Bourgeois law was formed as an integral system, which would exclude the legal particularism and diversity of legal orders characteristic of feudalism.

The formation of the national market, the assertion of the principles of private property and freedom of entrepreneurship on a national scale required the creation of a unified system of law. It was possible on principles different from those of feudal society: 1) the rule of law (or law): 2) legal equality; 3) the principle of freedom; 4) the principle of legality. The main value of civil society is the free individual, who has a claim to a certain amount of material and spiritual goods, called rights and freedoms. Bourgeois society proclaims freedom as the basis of social and political order. Freedom is interpreted quite broadly as freedom of economic, social, and political choice. It means the freedom of private property, enterprise, contract, the freedom to vote and be elected to public office, the freedom to organize, join and resign from organizations, and so on. These rights are granted to all legally capable persons irrespective of their class and class affiliation, as well as sex, nationality, and religion. This expresses the principle of formal equality. Closely related to the principle of legal equality is the principle of legality. Legal equality means not only equal rights, but also equal duties for all, and equal responsibility before the law. Lawful behavior of all citizens and legal entities is one of the manifestations of legality. Legitimacy as a principle of universal behavior provides stabilization of political and economic relations, so necessary for the progressive development of society. The core of the national legal system of modern times, its dominant feature is constitutional (state) law, which regulates the fundamental relationship of the individual, power and society, defines the organization, organization and procedure of activities of state authorities in the center and locally, their relationship with citizens, as well as enshrining the fundamental subjective rights and freedoms of the individual.

Principles of bourgeois type of law within the borders of particular states, depending on the level of economic development, cultural and legal traditions acquired specific form of national legal system. Similar features of national legal systems of different countries allow to combine them into legal families: 1) Euro-continental (Romano-Germanic) and 2) Anglo-American (Anglo-Saxon or common law system). The differences between them are related to: a) the specifics of the process of law formation, in particular, either on the basis of reception of the Roman law, or on the basis of the judge’s decision; b) to the different forms of existence of the law itself, where in one case the law served as the main source, and in another – of judicial precedent; c) to the differences in the structure of law: the presence and absence of division into branches of law.

The Eurocontinental (Romano-Germanic) legal family was adopted by the countries of continental Europe, where the legal system developed on the basis of reception of the Roman law. In the 19th century these legal systems were influenced by French law, and in the 20th century their development was influenced by German law. The main source of law is the law, which establishes general rules of conduct and legal principles. The court in these countries is not engaged in standard-setting activities, but only applies the legal norms to specific cases. Furthermore, among the features of continental legal systems is the widespread codification of both substantive and procedural law

Euro-continental legal systems are characterized by the division of law into private law and public law. According to the prevailing view in these countries, private law protects the interests of individuals against criminal infringements, both on the part of individuals and on the part of the state. Private law includes such branches as civil law, family law, and commercial law. Unlike private law, public law determines the order of organization and activity of the bodies of power and administration and protects the interests of society and the state from any encroachments. The concept of public law includes a set of branches: constitutional, administrative, international, criminal, procedural law. Continental legal systems clearly distinguish between substantive law (a set of norms that directly regulate a particular type of social relations: managerial, property, etc.) and procedural law (a set of norms that define the interaction between the subjects of law, for example, an investigator and a lawyer).

The Anglo-American legal family has not adopted Roman law. It is based on the common law of England, which was created by the royal courts in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The main source of law in these countries is judicial precedent (i.e. a decision of the highest courts of England, such as the High Court or the Court of Appeal), which is considered binding on all courts when considering similar cases. The court creates law, but it creates not general but casuistic rules, i.e., in other words, rules for resolving a particular case. In this regard, in Anglo-Saxon countries the concepts of law and law are not the same. Parliamentary law – a statute becomes the law of the country only if it is applied and interpreted by the court. Custom and constitutional agreements play a significant role as sources of law in these countries. The latter are very widely used in the exercise of state power, determining the relationship between the monarch, parliament and the government. Anglo-American legal systems do not divide law into private and public. There is no strict distinction between substantive and procedural law. In Anglo-Saxon countries the branches of law known in continental Europe are not structurally distinguished. Anglo-American law does not know codification, it is characterized by a special terminology, the presence of legal institutions, which are not found in the Euro-continental legal family.

In the development of the state and law of Europe and the United States in modern times usually distinguish three periods:

1) the initial period – the formation of nation-states and national legal systems (mid-seventeenth century – last third of the eighteenth century);
2) the period of strengthening of the bourgeois state and law as a result of the victory of capitalism and creation of colonial empires, but as a result of the industrial revolution the social antagonisms between proletariat and bourgeoisie worsen; this is the period of mass popular uprisings and bourgeois revolutions in Europe (mid 17th century – 90s of the 18th century – 70s of the 19th century)
3) the period of the crisis of bourgeois state and law and the search for a way out of it through the redistribution of resources in World War I, the emergence of alternative forms of state and law – socialist state and law in Soviet Union.

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Canon law arose originally as the law of the Christian Church as a whole. Then, after the schism of the church, two separate branches of canon law developed. In Western and Central Europe, canon law developed under the influence of the “papal revolution” and became an independent and effective system of medieval law. The Eastern branch of canon law, which took shape within the Greek Orthodox Church, was active in Byzantium as well as in a number of other countries of Southeastern and Eastern Europe, but did not have the same authority as canon law in the West.

The great importance of the norms of canon law in Western European society was determined by a number of factors. First of all, canon law here was developed and supported by the powerful Roman Catholic Church and the papacy, whose political power has already been mentioned. Canon law was universal and extraterritorial, since its norms were in force in all countries which accepted Catholicism. It knew no national boundaries and united all Catholics into one. Canon law was also noted for the breadth of the social relations it regulated. It covered both secular and spiritual issues and was binding on both clergy and laity. Finally, canon law was given special weight by its traditional character, as it had its roots in antiquity, in Greek philosophy and in Roman legal culture. Canon law absorbed and transmitted to subsequent generations a whole series of norms of Roman law, its language, which is reflected in the formula: “the church lives by Roman laws” (ecclesia vivit legae romanae).

The process of systematization of canon law in the Middle Ages culminated in the compilation in 1500 of a vast corpus, which since 1580 was recognized as the official source of law of the Roman Catholic Church. By analogy with the Codification of Justinian, it was called the Code of Canon Law (Corpus juris canonici). Medieval canon law covered a wide range of issues and played an important role in the legal life of Western European countries. It regulated the organization of ecclesiastical authority (the right of the pope to appoint to ecclesiastical posts, the procedure of disputes between priests, etc.), as well as the relations of the church with secular authority, the status of church property and the regime of ownership and use of church lands, sources of church income, etc.

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The peculiarity of the status of the medieval town was a continuation of the conditions of its formation in the system of feudal relations. The original urban settlement was a community which was under the feudal power of a lord, a clergyman or a sovereign duke. The lord, interested in strengthening the town on his land, granted some privileges to the community in a special charter, or charters. The history of cities as independent social units began with the issuance of such charters. The first charters were given to cities from the end of XI century in France (Cambré – 1076, Amiens – 1084, etc.), in Germany – at the turn of XI – XII centuries. Such acts were usually of two varieties. In one of them a city was released from feudal duties (military, right of “dead hand”) and freedoms (choice of residence and occupation, right to marry without a lienor permission), but some general feudal duties of a city as a whole were established. In others, the exemption from feudal duties was supplemented by the right to essentially legal autonomy (including its own criminal and civil jurisdiction). The legal secession of the city was inseparable from the emergence of urban self-government.

This legal detachment of cities became the basis for the development of their own urban law, under which the members of the urban community lived and to which the entire organization of urban life was subordinated. Due to the peculiarities of the feudal epoch, the town law was strictly stratified; it was through it that the stratum of townspeople was formed. However, the richness of economic and socio-cultural life of the city made town law more complicated and “open” for new relations than zemstvo feudal law.

The early urban law (for example, the law of the city of Strasbourg at the end of the twelfth century) was made up of liege-ordained injunctions and permissions. It was devoted mainly to the regulation of the status of lordship officers in the town, mutual relations between officers and townsfolk, and also to the determination of the duties which townsfolk were obliged to fulfill in favor of their former lordship (bishop): smiths – to forge arrows for war, but only 300 pieces, innkeepers – to clean the bishop’s lavatory on Mondays, etc. The city was granted the right to shelter criminals who had fled to it. And every person – “both stranger and native, so that he may have peace in it at all times and from all.”

Later, city law began to take on an increasingly independent character. Town governments, having justified their independence, started to work out rules and charters for town justice and the whole life of the town by themselves. The most famous in Europe in the late Middle Ages were the Lübeck and Magdeburg law systems.

The law of Lübeck was the purest in principles of the city law. It coincides with the establishment of Lübeck on the Baltic Sea as a free imperial town (1226). The highest city government body began to register legal regulations for the needs of city justice, and then to systematize them. The first systematization of Lübeck law (90 articles) dates to 1263. During the next centuries the collection of Lübeck law grew: in 1586 it was 418 articles (including borrowings from Hamburg law). An inseparable part of Lübeck law was the Hanseatic Code, devoted to the law of the sea and trade. The printed collection (1608) systematized the municipal law in six sections: general rules, inheritance law, contract and obligation law, criminal law, court law, regulation of ship’s affairs.

Lübeck law was extremely widespread in Northern Europe. Over 100 towns on the Baltic coast, especially members of the trade-political Hanseatic League, accepted the Lübeck privilege to use its rules and regulations: Rostock, Wismar, Königsberg, Revel and Riga. With this acceptance the supreme jurisdiction of the Lübeck court was also recognized for these cities. It was not until the end of the 15th century that the Duke of Holstein (in whose lands Lübeck was) transferred appellate jurisdiction to other land courts.

The Magdeburg Law was more widespread in Central and Eastern Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Poland, and Western Russia. It originated in the bishop’s constitution of 1188, which recognized the independence of Magdeburg. Magdeburg. Its origin was different from that of Lübeck. Magdeburg law was an adaptation of German law – mainly the Saxon Serzal – to the needs of city courts. It was formed not by statutes or systematization, but by the record of the decisions of the city’s Schaffen court. Private codifications of these records appeared in the XIII century. By the XIV century Magdeburg law took almost complete form, embracing with typical decisions the main fields of criminal, property, liability, commercial, inheritance and family law. It was then that the Magdeburg law began to be widely adopted by other Central European cities. The city’s own systematization of law did not survive (in the early 17th century, Magdeburg’s magistrate and judicial archives were destroyed by fire). The main code of Magdeburg law was the Code of Gerlitz (1304), made in one of the subsidiary cities.

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Let us first get acquainted with the laws of ancient Athens. They had the most developed legal system of all the ancient Greek polities, although it has not survived to this day in its entirety. But in Sparta, for example, there were no written laws at all. Laws themselves, it is true, did exist. They were given to the Spartans by the legendary Lycurgus.

He, in his turn, according to the same legends, received them directly from the god Apollo through the Delphi’s Oracle. This happened, historians think, sometime in the ninth century B.C. Likely, the laws of Lycurgus were set forth briefly enough (brevity, as you remember, was a distinctive feature of the Spartans). So they may well have been transmitted from generation to generation orally.

But the laws of the Athenian tyrant Dracontus in 621 B.C. were written down. Tyrants in the Athenian republic were called rulers who came to power by force. Some of them were wise and just rulers and patrons of the arts. Dracontus, judging from his laws, was a rather harsh man. Virtually any crime was punishable by the same penalty, the death penalty. This applied even to stealing vegetables from a vegetable garden or a bunch of grapes from someone else’s garden.

Plutarch, an ancient Greek writer from the beginning of our era, gave the following explanation of the ancient Athenian legislator: “All crimes, even minor ones, deserve this punishment, and for major ones I have found no greater.

It is true that a fine could be imposed for some offenses. For example, for invasion of personal integrity. The murderer could also be spared if he was able to reconcile with the relatives of his victim. In this case the court imposed compensation. Its amount was set by agreement of the parties. This only applied to unintentional murders.

Dracontus was probably the first to divide crimes into intentional and negligent. He introduced the principle of equality before the law in the sphere of criminal law. Any privileges, such as those of the clan nobility, were abolished in imposing penalties for crimes.

The laws of Dracontus, except those relating to punishment for murder and other serious crimes, were repealed in 594 B.C. Solon, the famous politician of Ancient Greece and one of the “Seven Sages” of Athens, compiled a new body of laws for the Athenians.

Solon was elected archonet (as the chief official in many ancient Greek polities was called) and was given extraordinary powers to carry out reforms. The situation in Athens at this time was difficult. Aristotle described it this way: “The majority of the people were enslaved by a few, and the people revolted against the nobles. The turmoil was great, and for a long time some fought against others.” The new laws were to reconcile the demos and the nobles.

First of all, Solon turned his attention to solving the problems of the debtors. The existing debts were cancelled. Researchers do not agree whether this applied to all debtors or to some part of them. The plots of land that were mortgaged against the debt were returned to the owners. Debt bondage, that is, enslavement for debt, was forbidden. All debtor-slaves were set free. Those that were sold outside Athens were bought out at the expense of the treasury.

The privileges of the clan aristocracy were done away with in the political sphere. The degree of participation of Athenians in the government of the state now depended not on nobility, but on their property status. This too, of course, was not full equality. Still, a person’s level of income and wealth depended more on his personal qualities and efforts than on the fact of being born into one family or another. None of the Athenian citizens were entirely deprived of political rights. All could participate in the People’s Assembly and be elected as judges. Citizens were also given the right to file public lawsuits. This meant that they could go to court on a matter that was not of personal interest to them, but of public importance. This was the basis of Athenian democracy.

Property relations were regulated in sufficient detail. The observance of the laws was to reduce to a minimum the possibility of harm to one another. Thus, there were obligations to plant trees at a certain distance from the boundary of a neighbor’s plot. The same rule applied to the digging of pits and ditches and the placement of bees.

Solon also passed a law on wills. Previously, the owner of property could not dispose of it at his discretion: after his death it all remained in his clan. Now, if the owner had no children, he could bequeath it to an outsider.

Much attention was paid to the legal regulation of family relations. In order to exclude fictitious marriages (for mercenary motives), age limits were introduced, and women were forbidden to bring her husband a large dowry.

In order to preserve morality and public tranquility, slander was punished. It was considered an insult to personal honor and led to a fine. This was considered an affront to personal honor and led to a fine. The demonstration of luxury and all immodesty and pretentiousness were restricted. This included, for example, the excessive mourning of women mourners at funerals. Yes, such things were also regulated by law. Adultery was severely punished: the husband had the right to kill his wife’s lover.

Solon’s laws also reflected a policy of protectionism. The development of handicraft production was supported. The export of grain was restricted (it was in short supply in Athens), and the sale of olive oil outside the polis was encouraged.

The laws were hammered out on 16 wooden boards and displayed for all to see. Solon obtained from his fellow citizens a promise to follow these regulations for at least a hundred years. But such a situation, so that everyone would be satisfied with the laws, was in principle impossible. The peasants demanded a redistribution of the land. The nobility resented it, for they were deprived of the privileges and free labor of the debtors. To resist the temptation to change the laws he had just passed, Solon left Athens. And spent at least ten years traveling outside his homeland. Let us highlight the legal principles that flowed from Solon’s legislative reforms.

• The principle of the priority of law over the opinion of its interpreters, however authoritative they may be.
• Equality before the law and equal right to speak.
• The right to bring a public lawsuit, including in defense of democracy.
• The right to appeal the decisions of officials to a people’s jury.

The ancient Roman civilization fell under the blows of the barbarians, but its legacy played an important role in the development of Europe. Roman law has had a particularly fortunate fate. European jurisprudence and civil law practice have developed on its foundations. This is particularly true of the civil law family, the Romano-Germanic family of law. You know that the modern Russian legal system is also part of this family, don’t you?

Of course, Roman law didn’t develop overnight. It took centuries. Roman historians claimed that written laws existed at the time of the first kings – Romulus and Numa Pompilius.

They probably had grounds to say so, but these ancient legal monuments have not reached our days. The oldest body of Roman law is the Laws of the Twelve Tables.

They were created by a special commission of 10 men. The original version, adopted in 451 BC, fit on 10 metal tables. But in the opinion of the plebeians (the lower classes of Roman society), they did not sufficiently protect their rights. That is why two more tables of laws were adopted the following year.

Until 387 B.C., anyone could read them in the Forum in front of the Senate building. But during the Gallic attack the tables were destroyed. Therefore, the laws of the Twelve Tables have survived only in fragments, in the retelling of later Roman lawyers. As far as can be judged, they focused on family and inheritance law. The laws were set out in succession, without division into branches. In the list of penalties, the ancient principle of talion coexisted with pecuniary penalties.

But, of course, the development of Roman law did not stop there. Social life was getting more complicated, the state territory was growing, and the political order was changing. New laws were adopted and old laws were abolished. This process continued after the fall of the Western Roman Empire – in Byzantium. It was there, in 529, that the Code of Justinian, the most complete collection of ancient Roman laws known to us, was compiled.

Justinian was a Byzantine emperor of the 6th century AD. He set out to restore the Roman Empire under his rule. He even managed to take over the Apennines, the south-west of the Iberian Peninsula and part of North Africa. But in doing so, he upset the public finances and pushed most of the country’s population to the brink of poverty.

Roman lawyers were the first in history to divide law into two parts: jus publicum, public law, and jus privatum, private law. Ulpianus wrote about it this way: “Public law is that which refers to the status of the Roman State, and private law is that which has in view the benefits and interests of individuals.”

Ulpian is perhaps the most famous ancient Roman jurist. He lived in the late first and early second century. He was an advocate of natural law. That is, he believed that human rights derive from his nature, rather than being granted by someone, were inalienable. Ulpian’s authority was so high that in the early fifth century his writings were given legal force.

In this way, public law regulated the issues of governance, the position of magistrates (authorities), the order of holding public office, and issues of a religious nature. It also included norms related to the organization of court proceedings and criminal law, as well as the procedure for determining the legal capacity and capacity of persons. The norms of public law had imperative (imperative, obligatory) nature and could not be changed.

Private law regulated property and family relations, property relations, the procedure of concluding and executing contracts, inheritance… State intervention in these relations was minimal. Citizens had to decide for themselves whether or not to exercise this right, to choose a variant of conduct, and to enshrine it in contracts. The main thing was not to overstep the boundaries set by law. If necessary, their private rights could be protected in court.

The method of legal regulation of relations between equal subjects on the basis of their free choice, the contract lawyers call dispositive. It can also be expressed in the following way: “Everything that is not expressly forbidden by law is allowed”.

Beginning in the twelfth century, Roman private law began to be widely studied in the universities of Western Europe and applied in the courts. It turned out that the dispositive method of regulating property relations and part of personal non-property relations fit very well into the life of the new European society. Other principles characteristic of Roman law were also in demand.

• The principle of the common good – the law is a manifestation of the common will, the protection of the law above the protection of the individual.
• Principle of Equality – rights are not created for individuals, but in a general way.
• The principle of justice – what is important to the law is what is fair; a case in court should not be decided more strictly or more leniently than the case demands.

We will talk about these and other ideas of the ancient Roman jurists in more detail when studying other topics. For now, let us summarize what has been said.

The principles elaborated by ancient law are interesting not only from a historical point of view. Many of them form the basis of modern legal systems. The idea of natural law and equality of all before the law, the principles of the rule of law and justice, the treaty as a source of private law (dispositive method of legal regulation), the right of appeal against the decisions of officials and courts – this is by no means a complete list of the heritage that we actively use.

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The European Middle Ages spanned more than a thousand years, a period of statehood, society, and law. During the Middle Ages the foundation was laid for the rapid development and change of Europe and the intense expansion of European civilization.

The Middle Ages were characterized by one-man rule. Virtually all the countries of Europe were ruled by monarchy; there were also republics of a special kind. The power of the king or kings was perceived as something natural and unquestionable, power derived from God and the higher spiritual spheres. The legal rules issued by monarchs were accepted as unquestionable “divine law,” they were almost never challenged. The king had sovereignty and was not subject to the courts.

There were several forms of monarchy in Europe:

1. Early feudal monarchy (V-IX centuries). Characteristic of the period of formation of feudal property, feudal lords are concentrated around the strengthened power of the king. The first feudal states are established.
2. Senorial monarchy (10th – 13th centuries). Feudal mode of production and subsistence economy flourish. Processes leading to feudal fragmentation start, the power shifts from the king to individual feudal lords. State power is established on the basis of vassal ties.
3. Class-representative monarchy (14th and 15th centuries). The state becomes centralized and representative bodies begin to function. Absolute monarchy (16th-17th centuries).
4. The entirety of power (legislative, judicial and executive functions) is concentrated in the hands of the king, and a bureaucratic state apparatus and professional army are created. The king had full control and governance over the country.

Role of feudal class in the establishment of statehood

Feudal class was dominant and represented a relatively closed group of people, endowed with special privileges – monopoly on the right to participate in the court and government, the right to own land and serfs.

Feudal relations were based on the relationship between feudal lords and vassals. The liege lords granted land to vassals and guaranteed them protection. In relation to the lords, the vassals were obliged to perform military service and other duties. The feudal possession was granted for life, but was taken away if the vassal obligations were breached. Land was leased for rent or taxes, and land was given for service. The number of vassals and lands determined the status of the liege lord, his title, and his influence at court.

The relationship of suzerainty and vassalage formed the class and specific political hierarchy. The economy was based on the land ownership of the ruling estates and was of a subsistence nature. The desire of the largest landowners to gain full power over their own possessions weakened the power of feudal powers. To maintain their power, monarchs used rivalries between feudal lords, used methods of court intrigue, and concluded dynastic marriages.

The class division expressed the inequality between people; a special legal place was established for each group. In addition to feudal lords and dependents, the clergy, nobility, artisans, merchants, officials, and bankers were distinguished. For each class were defined their own rights and duties, non-compliance with which led to the deprivation of rights. Within each estate was also distinguished hierarchical system. A significant role was played by corporate ties – guilds, shops, communities. The community played a large role in the life of the state, performing various functions: administrative, fiscal, judicial, and economic.

Medieval towns did not fit into the system of feudal relations. For the most part, townspeople were guided in their political life by traditional antique democratic orders, ignoring feudal methods of power.

Law in medieval Europe

The legal system of the Middle Ages was characterized by:

• Norms that regulated land relations, as well as norms that guaranteed extra-economic coercion, occupied the main place;
• Feudal law to a large extent perpetuated the inequality of different estates;
• In feudal law, there was no division into branches of law; there was a division into church law, tenant law, municipal law, etc., which was determined by its class principle;
• Feudal law was greatly influenced by ecclesiastical norms, often modified into legal norms;
• There was no unified law in the whole territory of the state, the law based on local customs prevailed.

During the late Middle Ages in Europe the foundations of the future law and judiciary, which went back to late antique Roman law, were laid.

Feudal law was considerably inferior to slave-holding private law (in particular, Roman law) by its internal structure, degree of elaboration, and legal technique. In Western Europe, Roman law experienced its “second birth”, which was due to the following reasons: Roman law provided a solution in matters of legal expression of processes and relations in the developing commodity economy; in Roman law monarchs found legal norms explaining their claims to unlimited power. Roman law favored the overcoming of state borders, the formation of a single nucleus of European legal culture.

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