Just a quick observation. Some of the blogospheric commentary I’m reading suggests to me that quite a few people don’t like our legal system and would really prefer a Code Napoleon system. Under our system if the law does not apply to the case at hand, the law does not apply. That’s that. Under the Code Napoleon the law always applies to every situation. It’s the job of the judge to figure out how.
We also have, by design, a very decentralized system. States aren’t subordinate to the federal government. They’re sovereign. The situation is very different in France or Germany where the French départements and German Länder are subordinate to the national governments. The distinction is between a system like ours in which the federal government is an entity distinct from the state governments and the more pyramidal structure of French and German governments.
I freely acknowledge that I’m oversimplifying a bit here. In some cases the “states” in European countries have distinct and different rights resulting from the historical development of the modern European countries.
