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Sunsetting Common Law
Project 2025 and recent decisions by the Trump appointee majority on the Supreme Court reveal a departure from the institution of common law, a core feature of justice in a free society.
In most societies there are two basic forms of legal practice by which decisions are reached and codes of conduct enforced— common law and civil law. Common law, also known as “case law,” is based on an evolving infrastructure acknowledging past case decisions and deliberation, known as “precedent,” or stare decisis. (1)
Civil law is based on a code of acceptable behavior and conduct in affairs as defined by existing dicta, validated and enforced by the state. Civil law is commonly referred to as “Napoleonic Code,” which France installed to arbitrate petitions before courts in France and its empire during the reign of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.
Though one observes a mingling of the two, one — common law — or the other — civil law — dominates. Most western societies including former colonies of England and France follow one of the other legal codes. In the Unites States, it is common law.
By contrast, in Hungary it is civil law. (2) Hungary exemplifies the context of why common law is being abandoned in the United States, and why Viktor Orban and his party in Hungary are looked to by members of America’s Republican Party and the former president…
