Jus Civile

Civil law

The system of law peculiar to one state or pcople.

Inst 1, 2, 1.

Particularly, in Roman law, the dvfl law of the Roman pcople, as distinguished from the jus gentium. The term is alsi' applied to the body of law called, emphatto? ally, the "civil law." The jus civile and the jus gentium are distinguished in this way. A11 people ruled by sta& utes and customs use a law partly peculiar te themselves, partly common to all men. Tks law each people has settled for itself is peculiar to the state itself, and is called "jus civile," as being peculiar to that very state. The law, again, that natural reason has settled among ali men,—the law that is guarded among all peoples quite alike,—is calied the "jus gentium," and all nations use it as if law. The Roman people, therefore, use a law that is partly peculiar to itself, partly common to ali men.

Hunter, Rom. Law, 38.

But this is not the only, or even the general, use of the words. What the Roman jurists had chiefly in view, when they spoke of "jus civile," was not local as opposed to cosmopolitan law, but the old law of the city as contrasted with the newer law introduced by the prætor, (jus praetortum, jus honorarium.)' Largely, no doubt, the jus gentium corresponds with the jus praetorium; but the correspondence is not perfect.

Id. 39.

Jus civile est quod sihi populus constituit. The civll law is what a people establishes for itself.

Inst. 1, 2, 1; Jackson v. Jackson, 1 Johns. (N. Y.) 424, 426.