ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on reasoning templates, which encompass both the modes of reasoning and the basic jural conceptions underlying a legal tradition. It demonstrates a deep division between the civil law and common law paradigms. The discussion that follows underscores comparative elements in both the common law and the civil law traditions which explain the historic reluctance towards a separate public law in the common law tradition. The common law and civil law traditions will be contrasted along three axes: the relative importance of the State in each tradition; the consequence on the treatment of fundamental rights; and the impact on certain legal doctrines such as that of abus de droit or abuse of rights. State regulation of religion be affected by a Catholic conception of religion, which may induce one to search for a correspondence between a religious claim and some official doctrine when appraising the seriousness of such a claim, as opposed to a Protestant conception of religion.
