Comparative Law Quotes
There is a school of thought that argues that American courts should NEVER look at the opinions of foreign courts. They argue that our legal system is determined by the Constitution and American Laws as well as the English Common Law. They believe that no consideration or weight should by given to court opinions even from Canada or Australia. Most jurists agree with Breyer. Foreign legal precedents should be examined to see what might be learned but should not be determinatitive.
While other nations have occasionally adopted laws and legal approaches of other countries and sometimes after being conquered have had their legal code rewritten to be more like that of the conqueror, this may be the only example of a nation having a major legal reform driven by compatibility with the major powers of the day.
This is a principle that most American jurists would applaud, with the exception of the very far right that does not even want foreign law consulted by the courts even for “useful knowledge” that they might contain. This is the most formalized and sophisticated compendium of laws of the so-called “barbaric peoples” of Europe. The compilation was in many ways a documentation of the traditional laws of the Visgoths that had evolved over hundreds of years.
