HISTORICAL SKETCH MONARCHY (REGNUM) 753 – 510 BC REPUBLIC (RESPUBLICA) 510 – 27 BC THE PRINCIPATE (PRINCIPATUS) 27 BC-AD 284 DOMINATE (DOMINATUS) FROM AD 284

BC 218

Bc 100

Height of the roman empire

SOURCES OF LAW

Kingdom + Early Republican Period Customs Interpretation by the priests (they interpret the customs) XII Tables (it does not consist new rules, it merely states the customary rules) Decisions of the Curia also called lex: Rare and mainly about private matters of the citizens that have an effect on the society as a whole

Kingdom + Early Republican Period THESE ALL MAKE THE IUS CIVILE ALSO, ALTHOUGH NOT RELATED TO PRIVATE LAW: Royal Decrees (These did not deal with private matters –private law- they mainly dealt with administarion issues and some parts of criminal law)

REPUBLICAN PERIOD Ius Praetorium- Edict of the magistrate (the law created by the praetor as opposed to Ius civile; targeting to overcome the boundaries of the strict and inflexible ius civile in the wake of new needs and developments) Lex Jurisprudence (the explanations and interpretations by the jurists. More or less the same activity which the priests used to do in the kingdom period)

PRINCIPATE PERIOD Ius Praetorium (still effective and binding) Lex (Nearly non-existant) Senatus Consultum (Decisions of the Senate) Naturally, with the decline of democratic tendencies; the law-making power of the Comitia was replaced with the Senate’s.

PRINCIPATE PERIOD Jurisprudence (stil very effective) - Ius Responda (some of the jurists were given the right ‘ius responda’ which meant that their responses to legal questions - under the authority of the Princeps – was binding. The Edict of the Princeps (Constitutiones Principum)

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMAN LAW Unlike modern Civil Codes which claim to regulate all legal matter in a coherent system according to uniform principles, Roman private law does not show any uniformity either extrinsically or intrinsically. Roman private law is composed of several masses or layers of legal institutions and rules of law which differ one from the other in accordance with their scope of validity or in accordance with their source of validity.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMAN LAW THE EARLY ROMAN LAW WAS VERY FORMALISTIC AND RIGID MAINLY OWING TO ITS RELIGIOUS ROOTS. AS THE LAW DEVELOPED, THE FORMALISM AND RIGIDY OF THE SYSTEM GRADUALLY DECREASED

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMAN LAW EARLY ROMAN LAW WAS ORAL, IT USED WRITING VERY LITTLE; HOWEVER UNDER UNDER GREEK INFLUENCE, LEGAL DOCUMENTS HAD BECOME COMMON BEFORE THE END OF REPUBLIC

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMAN LAW The Romans did not conceive their law as a system of abstract conceptions and preferred to leave the legal order, without any planned interference, to its natural growth. The arrangement of private law in anything like a system which is governed by juristic principles was unknown to early Roman Law. In time, we can observe an increasing tendency towards abstract methods of thought such as concrete methods of classifications.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMAN LAW SAME CAN BE SAID ABOUT THE ROMAN TENDENCIES TO DEFINITIONS AND CATEGORİZATİONS. THE JURISPRUDENCE OF ROMAN LAW CENTERED AROUND CASUISTRY, HENCE THE OCCUPATION WITH ATTRACTIVE AND UNUSUALLY KNOTTY CASES THE ROMAN LAW WAS ESSENTIALLY A ‘CASE LAW’.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMAN LAW THE MAIN PART OF ITS SUBSTANTIAL IDEAS WAS CREATED NOT BY A LAWGIVER AS IN MODERN CONTİNENTAL LEGAL SYSTEMS, BUT BY PRACTICE OF GIVING OPINIONS ON INDIVIDUAL CASES WHICH MADE ITS RULES MUCH MORE FLEXIBLE THAN THOSE OF MODERN CONTINENTAL LAW

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMAN LAW ALTHOUGH IT IS OBVIOUS THAT THE PAGAN ROMAN RELIGION (AS WELL AS ARCHAIC SUPERSTITIONS) PLAYED A VERY IMPORTANT PART IN THE BIRTH OF MOST OF THE LEGAL INSTITUTIONS AND CONCEPTS, THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT ROMAN LAW WAS NOT SECULAR

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMAN LAW THE RITUALISTIC ACTS, THE ORIGINS OF WHICH DERIVED FROM RELIGIOUS ROOTS, IN TIME TURNED INTO LEGAL FORMS AND ‘THE SACRED’ BECAME LEGAL ONLY WITH THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY, RELIGIOUS CONCERNS AND DIVINE COMMANDS STARTED TO BE INCORPORATED INTO ROMAN LAW

CORPUS IURIS CIVILIS ALTHOUGH LAW AS PRACTICED IN ROME HAD GROWN UP AS A TYPE OF CASE LAW, THIS WAS NOT THE "ROMAN LAW" KNOWN TO THE MEDIEVAL, OR MODERN WORLD. THE PRINCIPLES AND CONCEPTS OF ROMANS WERE TRANSMITTED TO THE MIDDLE AGES IN THE GREAT CODIFICATION OF ROMAN LAW CARRIED THROUGHOUT BY THE EMPEROR JUSTINIAN (527-565)

CORPUS IURIS CIVILIS THE CORPUS IURUS CIVILIS WAS ISSUED IN LATIN IN THREE PARTS, THE CODEX, THE DIGEST AND THE INSTITUTES (INSTITUTIONES). LATER, JUSTINIAN ISSUED A NUMBER OF OTHER LAWS, MOSTLY IN GREEK, WHICH WERE CALLED NOVELS (NOVELLAE)

PARTS OF C.I.C CODEX: THE FIRST PART WAS THE CODEX JUSTINIANUS WHICH COMPILED ALL OF THE EXTANT IMPERIAL CONSTITUTIONES FROM THE TIME OF EMPEROR HADRIAN (117-138) DIGESTA: THE SECOND PART, THE DIGEST (DIGESTA) OR PANDECTS (PANDECTAE), WAS ISSUED IN 533: IT COMPILED THE WRITINGS OF THE GREAT ROMAN JURISTS SUCH AS ULPIAN ALONG WITH CURRENT EDICTS

PARTS OF C.I.C Institutiones: The third part, the Institutes (Institutiones), was intended as a sort of legal textbook for law schools but. Justinian’s Institutes is largely based on the Institutes of the celebrated jurist of the classical period Gaius (130-180) who had lived some centuries before the time of Justinian. Two thirds of the Institutiones of Justinian consists of literal quotes from Gaius.

INSTITUTIONES SYSTEM The modern continental private law is described in modern codes by following the scheme of the Institutiones of Justinian and Gaius. In both Institutiones (Gaius’s and Justinian’s); private law was divided into mainly three divisions or as in the words of Gaius himself: “All the ius (law) which we make use of has reference either to persons, to things, or to actions.”

INSTUTITONES SYSTEM SO GAIUS (AND THEN JUSTINIAN) HELD THAT PRIVATE LAW IS DIVIDED INTO 3 MAIN PARTS: LAW CONCERNING PERSONS LAW CONCERNING THINGS LAW CONCERNING ACTIONS (HERE ACTION MEANS LAW SUIT)

INSTITUTIONES SYSTEM THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM STILL FOLLOWS THIS DIVISON AS EVIDENT İN THE CONTINENTAL MODERN CIVIL CODES (INCLUDING THE TURKISH-SWISS CIVIL CODE)