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Jan 6, 641
Mosaic Law
The law attributed to Moses, specifically the laws set out in Deuteronomy, as a consequence came to be considered supreme over all other sources of authority (the king and his officials), and the Levite priests were the guardians and interpreters of the law -
Jan 1, 1189
English Common Law
was based on the principle that the rulings made by the King's courts were made according to the common custom of the realm, as opposed to decisions made in local and manorial courts which judged by provincial laws and customs. The crafting of English Common Law was begun in the reign of Henry II, who had foreign legal learning and instituted legal reform in England. It also established "the Law of Precedent" -
Jan 1, 1200
Greek Law
After the Dark Ages - About 1200-900 BC - and beginning at about 900 BC, the Ancient Greeks had no official laws or punishments. It was not until the middle of the seventh century BC that the Greeks first began to establish official laws. Around 620 BC Draco, the lawgiver, wrote the first known written law of Ancient Greece. This law established exile as the penalty for homicide -
Jan 1, 1215
The Magna Carta
The 1215 charter required King John of England to proclaim certain liberties, and accept that his will was not arbitrary, for example by explicitly accepting that no "freeman" (in the sense of non-serf) could be punished except through the law of the land, a right which is still in existence today.
Magna Carta was the first document forced onto an English King by a group of his subjects, the feudal barons, in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges. -
NC Constitution
governs the structure and function of the state government of North Carolina, United States; it is the highest legal document for the state and subjugates North Carolina law. All US state constitutions are subject to federal judicial review; any provision can be nullified if it conflicts with federal law or the US Constitution.The first North Carolina Constitution was created in 1776 after the American Declaration of Independence. -
Code of Hammurabi 1780 BC
Fordham University states, "[B]y far the most remarkable of the Hammurabi records is his code of laws, the earliest-known example of a ruler proclaiming publicly to his people an entire body of laws, arranged in orderly groups, so that all men might read and know what was required of them. The code was carved upon a black stone monument, eight feet high, and clearly intended to be reared in public view. "An eye for an eye" was very influencial." -
US Constitution
is the supreme law of the United States of America. The first three Articles of the Constitution establish the rules and separate powers of the three branches of the federal government: a legislature, the bicameral Congress; an executive branch led by the President; and a federal judiciary headed by the Supreme Court. The last four Articles frame the principle of federalism. The Tenth Amendment confirms its federal characteristics -
Napoleonic Code
The Code represented a comprehensive reformation and codification of the French civil laws. Under the ancien regime more than 400 codes of laws were in place in various parts of France, with common law predominating in the north and Roman law in the south. -
Uniform Commercial Code
a comprehensive code addressing most aspects of commercial law, is generally viewed as one of the most important developments in American law. The UCC text and draft revisions are written by experts in commercial law and submitted as drafts for approval to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (now referred to as the Uniform Law Commissioners), in collaboration with the American Law Institute. -
Roman Civil Law
The Code was divided into several volumes, including: Codex Justinianus, Digest, Institutes, and Novels. Justinian considered the code to be comprehensive and unified, and forbade further development of legal precedent through judicial rulings or scholarly commentary. Justinian's approach precluded judicial expansion of civil rights, curtailed a check against executive power, and permitted differential treatment of similarly-situated defendants by discouraging judicial reference to precedent. -
Justinian's Code
was the result of Emperor Justinian's desire that existing Roman law be collected into a simple and clear system of laws, or "code." Tribonian, a legal minister under Justinian, lead a group of scholars in a 14-month effort to codify existing Roman law. The result was the first Justinian Code, completed in 529. This code was later expanded to include Justinian's own laws, as well as two additional books on areas of the law.
