Case Law in Roman, Anglosaxon and Continental Law

Case law is a widely studied field, posing a series of questions. The first issue relates to the nature of case law itself, as the term cannot be given a single meaning. There is no one definition of case law, but rather a plurality of meanings depending on the historical period and legal system in question. After an analysis of Roman "iurisprudentia" and Anglo-Saxon case law, this work considers the Spanish legal system, as an example of a Continental jurisdiction, and distinguishes between the case laws of the Supreme and Constitutional Courts, the European courts, and the Superior Courts of Justice of the Autonomous Communities. The book analyses these issues, among many others, in a clear and in-depth manner, from an historical and comparative approach of great interest and academic value.

Maria Jose Falcon y Tella is Professor of Philosophy of Law (1991) at the Complutense University of Madrid. She is the author of 23 books, many of them translated into different languages, such as Civil Disobedience (Martinus Nijhoff, 2004), Punishment and Culture (Martinus Nijhoff, 2006), Equity and Law (Martinus Nijhoff, 2008), and A Three-Dimensional Theory of Law (Martinus Nijhoff, 2010). She was awarded “The National Prize of Studies in Law” in 1987.