List of national legal systems
Common law is currently in practice in Ireland, most of the United Kingdom (England and Wales and Northern Ireland), Australia, New Zealand, Bangladesh, India (excluding Goa), Pakistan, South Africa, Canada (excluding Quebec), Hong Kong, the United States (on a state level excluding Louisiana), and many other places. In addition to these countries, several others have adapted the common law system into a mixed system. For example, Nigeria operates largely on a common law system, but incorporates religious law.
Common law
The first definition of "common law" given in "Black's Law Dictionary", 10th edition, 2014, is "The body of law derived from judicial decisions, rather than from statutes or constitutions; [synonym] CASELAW, [contrast] STATUTORY LAW." This usage is given as the first definition in modern legal dictionaries, is characterized as the “most common” usage among legal professionals, and is the usage frequently seen in decisions of courts. In this connotation, "common law" distinguishes the authority that promulgated a law. For example, the law in most Anglo-American jurisdictions includes "statutory law" enacted by a legislature, "regulatory law" (in the U.S.) or “delegated legislation” (in the U.K.) promulgated by executive branch agencies pursuant to delegation of rule-making authority from the legislature, and common law or "case law", "i.e.", decisions issued by courts (or quasi-judicial tribunals within agencies). This first connotation can be further differentiated into
Publication of decisions, and indexing, is essential to the development of common law, and thus governments and private publishers publish law reports. While all decisions in common law jurisdictions are precedent (at varying levels and scope as discussed throughout the article on precedent), some become "leading cases" or "landmark decisions" that are cited especially often.