>Unfortunately, precedent-based law purports that its precedents carry the status of universal truths, rather than just the somewhat arbitrary decisions they were.
No doubt it is far from perfect in practice, but which one(s) is(are) and why?
For example, I don't know if Common Law is any better or worse in practice (not even sure how that would really be measured) than the Civil Law system, but I always thought it is a little overly ambitious to think we could codify a rule to be applied to every possible factual situation before they occur in a statute, whereas the Common Law system assumes that we can't do that, so it acknowledges there will be cases of first impression (sets of facts we haven't applied to the law before) which will create new law (precedent) to be applied to future cases with similar facts. I do know Louisiana is the only State to have a hybrid of Common/Civil Law (due to French influence), honestly I don't know a thing about it in practice, but no other State has been convinced to adopt it and they haven't been convinced to drop it either.
>So after the current contradictory system has fallen apart
Our Common Law system is based on the old English Common Law system, so it goes back to the Norman Viking Conquests (~1100). Since the start, we have obviously developed an extensive body of case law and for the most part we rarely cite the old English Common Law cases any more, but it is still a 1,000 year old legal system. It is another very interesting question, can a legal system even change from Civil Law to something else without a full change in Government? For example, could Louisiana even drop its Common Law/Civil Law hybrid and join the 49 other States, or could another State drop their Common Law system for Louisiana's hybrid, and if so what does that transition look like? Just reading your sentence, I have to say it sounds ominous, as in system fall apart doesn't mean Common Law legal system but the entire rule of law (US Government, Bill of Rights, etc...), admittedly I am reading into what you meant and maybe it would be no difficult task to just move away from Common Law and maintain continuity of everything else.
No doubt it is far from perfect in practice, but which one(s) is(are) and why?
For example, I don't know if Common Law is any better or worse in practice (not even sure how that would really be measured) than the Civil Law system, but I always thought it is a little overly ambitious to think we could codify a rule to be applied to every possible factual situation before they occur in a statute, whereas the Common Law system assumes that we can't do that, so it acknowledges there will be cases of first impression (sets of facts we haven't applied to the law before) which will create new law (precedent) to be applied to future cases with similar facts. I do know Louisiana is the only State to have a hybrid of Common/Civil Law (due to French influence), honestly I don't know a thing about it in practice, but no other State has been convinced to adopt it and they haven't been convinced to drop it either.
>So after the current contradictory system has fallen apart
Our Common Law system is based on the old English Common Law system, so it goes back to the Norman Viking Conquests (~1100). Since the start, we have obviously developed an extensive body of case law and for the most part we rarely cite the old English Common Law cases any more, but it is still a 1,000 year old legal system. It is another very interesting question, can a legal system even change from Civil Law to something else without a full change in Government? For example, could Louisiana even drop its Common Law/Civil Law hybrid and join the 49 other States, or could another State drop their Common Law system for Louisiana's hybrid, and if so what does that transition look like? Just reading your sentence, I have to say it sounds ominous, as in system fall apart doesn't mean Common Law legal system but the entire rule of law (US Government, Bill of Rights, etc...), admittedly I am reading into what you meant and maybe it would be no difficult task to just move away from Common Law and maintain continuity of everything else.