The English legal system is the common law system.英国的法律制度属普通法系。The "common law" is a term that came to be used for the laws and customs applied by the royal courts,"普通法"一词用于指皇家法庭适用的法律和惯例，这些法律和惯例，and which progressively replaced local laws and customs applied in various local courts.这些法律和惯例随着时间的推移逐渐取代了各地法院所适用的地方法律和惯例。In the United Kingdom, initially, law was judge-made and there was a system of precedent.在英国，法律最初为法官法，所采用的制度为判例制度。Judges' decisions were recorded and were regarded as persuasive and even binding, and these decisions were followed in comparable cases.法官的裁决被记录下来，并被视为有说服力甚至有约束力的法则，于是这些裁决被法官在审理与之相类似的可比案件中采用。The point that prior to judicial decisions is a source of law is a distinctive feature of the "common law system".先前的此法裁决作为法的渊源之一，这是普通法系的一个显著特征。This feature distinguishes such system from the "civil law system", which is prevalent in European continental countries.这一特征将与欧洲大陆法系区别开来。The "civil law system" originated from Roman law and was based upon a series of codes established in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.大陆法系盛行与欧洲大陆国家，它最初源于罗马法，其所依据的是19世纪和20世纪制定的一系列法典。The basic elements of English law have been adopted in a number of Commonwealth countries,英国法的基本原理已被一些英联邦国家所采纳，most notably Australia, New Zealand, Canada (except Quebec) and the United States (except Louisiana).较为突出的'有澳大利亚，新西兰，加拿大（魁北克省除外）和美国（路易斯安那州除外）。