In the U.S. legal system, there is an interaction between case law and legislation. Law is primarily understood as the law of jurisprudence. The rules developed by legislators enter into the system of American law only after they have been repeatedly interpreted and applied by the courts, when it is possible to refer to the judicial decisions that have applied these rules.
The structure of modern U.S. law is generally similar to that of common law.
What distinguishes American law from English common law is:
A great degree of systematization and structure;
The enormous role of the Constitution in shaping the rules of law;
A two-tiered legal and governmental system;
A polyphonic legal culture.
The United States was formed and developed on the basis of decentralized forms of structure and communication, leading later to federalism as a special system of state decentralization and self-government.
Throughout the common law system, U.S. law has a number of peculiar features:
A legal development in two levels in which state and federal legal systems operate simultaneously and in interaction with each other;
The position of the federal Constitution, the role of which is predetermined by the interpretation of its provisions by the Supreme Court;
The implementation of the principle of separation of powers, with the simultaneous introduction of judicial review of the constitutionality of laws;
Preservation of the supremacy of judicial practice, combined with the rapid and extensive development of sectoral legislation, whose codification takes place in the form of a consolidation of norms and acts.
Collections of laws are a variety of systematized acts in force and the Code of Laws ;
Differences in legal terminology.
The constituent states of the United States have broad competencies within which they create their own system of case law and their own legislation. Thus, there are 51 systems of law in the United States: federal and in the 50 states. In each state, the courts exercise jurisdiction independently. Quite often, different state courts have issued different or even directly opposite decisions in similar cases, which creates certain conflicts when state court decisions diverge from federal court decisions.
A great deal of variance and difference in the legal system is introduced by each state’s law. Each state has different grounds for divorce, some states have separate property laws, some have community of property laws, and so on. All of this makes the country’s legal system more confusing and complex.
Effect of the rules of precedent in today’s environment
More than 300 volumes of case law are published annually in the United States, but precedent continues to be sought. Historically, the Superior Courts and the Supreme Court have not been bound by their own precedents. From this follows great maneuverability and freedom in the process of adapting law to the ever-changing conditions of public life.
In light of the power of the American courts, the free handling of precedent has the special significance of being able to control the constitutionality of laws. The U.S. Supreme Court and the State Supreme Court and can dispense with precedent for constitutional interpretation. The Supreme Court’s active use of constitutional review points to the special role of the judiciary in the U.S. system of government.
Judicial influence on legislation is highly capable. Legislation has a significant weight in the legal system, which is associated with the existence of a system of written constitutions – the federal Constitution and state constitutions. States actively exercise broad legislative competence, from which follows a significant body of statutory law at the state level.