Codification of laws is a common practice in the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. Many general areas of

substantive law Substantive law is the set of laws that governs how members of a society are to behave.Substantive Law vs. Procedural Law: Definitions and Differences, Study.com/ref> It is contrasted with procedural law, which is the set of procedures for making, ...

, such as

criminal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It proscribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and Well-being, welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal l ...

, civil law and

labor law Labour laws (also spelled as labor laws), labour code or employment laws are those that mediate the relationship between workers, employing entities, trade unions, and the government. Collective labour law relates to the tripartite relationship be ...

are governed by codes of law.

Tradition

Codification is predominant in countries that adhere to the legal system of civil law.

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, a civil law country, introduced the practice of codification in the Philippines, which it had

colonized 475px, Map of the year each country achieved List of sovereign states by date of formation, independence. Colonization (British English: colonisation) is a process of establishing occupation of or control over foreign territories or peoples f ...

beginning in the late 16th century. Among the codes that Spain enforced in the Philippines were the

Spanish Civil Code The Civil Code of Spain (), formally the Royal Decree of 24 July 1889 () is the law that regulates the major aspects of Spanish civil law. It is one of the last civil codes in Continental Europe because of the sociopolitical, religious and terri ...

and the Penal Code. The practice of codification was retained during the period of

American colonial period The Thirteen Colonies were the British colonization of the Americas, British colonies on the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic coast of North America which broke away from the British Crown in the American Revolutionary War (1775–17 ...

, even though the United States was a

common law Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on prece ...

jurisdiction. At the time, many common law principles found their way into the legal system by way of

legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred ...

and by judicial pronouncements. Judicial

precedent Precedent is a judicial decision that serves as an authority for courts when deciding subsequent identical or similar cases. Fundamental to common law legal systems, precedent operates under the principle of ''stare decisis'' ("to stand by thin ...

s of the Philippine Supreme Court were accepted as binding, a practice more attuned to common law jurisdictions. Eventually, the Philippine legal system emerged in such a way that while the practice of codification remained popular, the courts were not barred from invoking principles developed under the common law,

CONCLUSIONS.
We may summarize our conclusions as follows:
# The Philippine Islands is an unorganized territory of the United States, under a civil government established by the Congress. # In interpreting and applying the bulk of the written laws of this jurisdiction, and in rendering its decision in cases not covered by the letter of the written law, this court relies upon the theories and precedents of Anglo- American cases, subject to the limited exception of those instances where the remnants of the Spanish written law present well-defined civil law theories and of the few cases where such precedents are inconsistent with local customs and institutions. # The jurisprudence of this jurisdiction is based upon the English Common Law in its present day form of Anglo-American Common Law to an almost exclusive extent. # By virtue of the foregoing, the New York rule, given a reasonable interpretation, permits conferring privileges on attorneys admitted to practice in the Philippine Islands similar to those privileges accorded by the rule of this court. or from employing methods of statutory construction in order to arrive at an interpretation of the codal provisions that would be binding in itself in Philippine law. Beginning in the American period, there was an effort to revise the Spanish codes that had remained in force even after the end of Spanish rule. A new

Revised Penal Code The Revised Penal Code contains the general penal laws of the Philippines. First enacted in 1930, it remains in effect today, despite several amendments thereto. It does not comprise a comprehensive compendium of all Philippine penal laws. The ...

was enacted in 1930, while a new

Civil Code A civil code is a codification of private law relating to property law, property, family law, family, and law of obligations, obligations. A jurisdiction that has a civil code generally also has a code of civil procedure. In some jurisdiction ...

took effect in 1950.

Republic Acts

Since the formation of local legislative bodies in the Philippines, Philippine legal codes have been enacted by the

legislature A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial power ...

, in the exercise of its powers of legislation. Since 1946, the laws passed by the Congress, including legal codes, have been titled Republic Acts. While Philippine legal codes are, strictly speaking, also Republic Acts, they may be differentiated in that the former represents a more comprehensive effort in embodying all aspects of a general area of law into just one legislative act. In contrast, Republic Acts are generally less expansive and more specific in scope. Thus, while the

seeks to govern all aspects of

private law Private law is that part of a legal system that governs interactions between individual persons. It is distinguished from public law, which deals with relationships between both natural and artificial persons (i.e., organizations) and the st ...

in the Philippines, a Republic Act such as Republic Act No. 9048 would concern itself with a more limited field, as in that case, the correction of entries in the

civil registry Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events ( births, marriages, and deaths) of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database has different names in different countries and even in diffe ...

. Still, the amendment of Philippine legal codes is accomplished through the passage of Republic Acts. Republic Acts have also been utilized to enact legislation on areas where the legal codes have proven insufficient. For example, while the possession of narcotics had been penalized under the 1930s

, the wider attention drawn to illegal drugs in the 1960s and the 1970s led to new legislation increasing the penalties for possession and

trafficking Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, soc ...

of narcotics. Instead of enacting amendments to the Revised Penal Code, Congress chose instead to enact a special law, the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1972.

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Notes

References

External links