ABSTRACT
One principal distinction to be made between common law and civil law systems is that the common law system is largely case-centred and heavily reliant on judicial interpretation of general principles, allowing scope for a policy-conscious and pragmatic approach to the particular problems that appear before the courts. The European Court of Justice, founded, in theory, on civil law principles, is, in practice, increasingly recognising the benefits of establishing a body of case law. The judge and jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr very aptly summed up the way such development works in his book The Common Law. Public law is the law that applies to public institutions or everyone at large, whereas private law is the law that applies to citizens in their relations with each other. Constitutional law concerns the relationship between the individual and the state examined from a legal viewpoint. Administrative law concerns particular branches of activity involving the state.
