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code of law

File:Code_Civil_1804.png · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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code of law

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Also known as legal code, law code, code

integrated piece of legislation that aims to exhaustively cover an area of law

~7 min read

Encyclopedic overview

First page of the 1804 original edition of the Napoleonic Code

A code of law, also called a law code or legal code, is a systematic collection of statutes. It is a type of legislation that purports to exhaustively cover a complete system of laws or a particular area of law as it existed at the time the code was enacted, by a process of codification. Though the process and motivations for codification are similar in different common law and civil law systems, their usage is different.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “code of law” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.