Civil laws are usually contrasted with common laws. The laws are not based on the opinions of judges, as how common laws are determined, should be written in black and white and should be published before the laws can be applied to the people. This is the primary feature of civil laws because they are intended to avoid discretionary and insular justice that can happen. Most of the time, civil laws are codified or organized into a collection. Also, the source of law is the legal code.

Civil laws are non-criminal laws such as commercial laws, property laws, administrative laws, and the governing procedure for civil cases. The laws also deal with the citizen’s rights in all aspects. Basically, civil law provides accessibility of citizens to the collection of laws applicable to them.

It is also considered that civil laws are the oldest legal system that survives in today’s time and the most prevalent among all the legal systems in the world. Some of the countries that use civil laws are France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Portugal, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. As for the United States, there are only three jurisdictions that use this kind of law: Louisiana, Puerto Rico, and Guam. These three jurisdictions don’t have pure civil laws but a mixture of civil and common laws.