Decisions weren’t published in any systematic way, so any case regulation that developed was disguised and nearly unrecognised. Each case was to be decided afresh from the laws of the State, which mirrors the (theoretical) unimportance of judges’ selections for future instances in civil legislation methods today. From 529–534 AD the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I codified and consolidated Roman legislation up till that point, so that what remained was one-twentieth of the mass of legal texts from before. As one legal historian wrote, “Justinian consciously seemed back to the golden age of Roman regulation and aimed to restore it to the height it had reached three centuries before.” The Justinian Code remained in force within the East till the autumn of the Byzantine Empire. Western Europe, meanwhile, relied on a mixture of the Theodosian Code and Germanic customary regulation till the Justinian Code was rediscovered within the eleventh century, and scholars at the University of Bologna used it to interpret their own laws.
Regarding plaintiffs and prosecutors, you can often tell a civil case from a criminal case by trying on the caption of a case going to trial. Governments will also convey civil actions to collect money owed from or settle disputes with people, corporations, or other governments. Thus U.S. v. Mayer might be a collection action for unpaid taxes, or U.S. v. Canada could be a boundary dispute in the International Court of Justice. Governments could be sued, as nicely; people sometimes sue their state or federal government, … Read More
