Hukum Amerika Serikat
Hukum Amerika Serikat pada awalnya diambil sebagian besar dari common law dari sistem hukum Inggris, yang berlaku pada saat Perang Kemerdekaan. Namun, hukum tertinggi di negara ini adalah Konstitusi Amerika Serikat dan, menurut Klausa Supremasi Konstitusi, hukum-hukum yang diberlakukan oleh Kongres dan perjanjian-perjanjian yang mengikat Amerika Serikat. Semua ini merupakan dasar bagi undang-undang federal di bawah konstitusi federal di Amerika Serikat, yang membentuk batas-batas yurisdiksi undang-undang federal dan undang-undang di ke-50 negara bagian AS dan wilayah-wilayahnya.
Tinjauan umum
Sumber-sumber hukum
Di Amerika Serikat, ada empat sumber hukum, yaitu hukum konstitusi, hukum administratif, statuta (hukum resmi yang tertulis di suatu negara), dan common law (yang mencakup hukum kasus). Sumber hukum yang terpenting adalah Konstitusi Amerika Serikat, dan segala sesuatu berada di bawahnya, dan takluk kepadanya. Tak boleh ada hukum yang berkontradiksi dengan Konstitusi Amerika Serikat. Misalnya, bila Kongres menyetujui sebuah statuta yang berlawanan dengan konstitusi, maka Mahkamah Agung dapat menganggap hukum itu inkonstitusional dan membatalkannya.
Common law Amerika
Meskipun Amerika Serikat dan kebanyakan negara-negara Persemakmuran mewarisi tradisional common law, dari sistem hukum Inggris, hukum Amerika cenderung unik dalam banyak hal. Ini disebabkan karena system hukum Amerika terputus dari system hukum Britania karena revolusi kemerdekaan negara ini, dan setelah itu ia berkembang secara mandiri dari system hukum Persemakmuran Britania. Oleh karena itu, bila kita mencoba menelusuri perkembangan prinsip-prinsip common law yang tradisional dibuat oleh para hakim, artinya, sejumlah kecil hukum yang belum dibatalkan oleh hukum-hukum yang lebih baru, maka peradilan peradilan Amerika akan melihat kepada kasus-kasus di Britania hanya sampai ke awal abad ke-19.
Meskipun pengadilan-pengadilan dari berbagai negara Persemakmuran seringkali saling mempegaruhi sesamanya melalui keputusan-keputusan yang diambilnya, pengadilan-pengadilan Amerika jarang sekali mengikuti keputusan-keputusan Persemakmuran pasca-revolusi kecuali apabila tidak ada keputusan yang diambil di Amerika mengenai masalah terkait, fakta-fakta dan hukum yang dimaksud hampir identik, dan alasannya dianggap sangat meyakinkan. Kasus-kasus Amerika yang paling awal, bahkan setelah Revolusi, seringkali mengutip kasus-kasus Britania yang sezaman, tetapi kutipan-kutipan seperti itu perlahan-lahan menghilang pada abad ke-19 ketika pengadilan-pengadilan Amerika mengembangkan prinsip-prinsipnya sendiri untuk memecahkan masalah-masalah hukum bangsa Amerika.[1] Today, the vast majority of American legal citations are to domestic cases. Sometimes, courts, and casebook editors, do make exceptions for opinions on issues of first impression by brilliant British jurists, like William Blackstone or Lord Denning.
Some adherents of originalism and strict constructionism such as Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court argue that American courts should never look for guidance to post-Revolution cases from legal systems outside of the United States, regardless of whether the reasoning is persuasive, with the sole exception of cases interpreting international treaties to which the United States is a signatory. Others, such as Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer, disagree, and cite foreign law from time to time, where they believe it is persuasive, useful or helpful.
Federal law
Federal law in the United States originates with the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to enact statutes for certain limited purposes like regulating commerce. Nearly all statutes have been codified in the United States Code. Many statutes give executive branch agencies the power to create regulations, which are published in the Code of Federal Regulations and also carry the force of law. Many lawsuits turn on the meaning of a federal statute or regulation, and judicial interpretations of such meaning carry legal force under the principle of stare decisis.
State law
The fifty American states are separate sovereigns with their own constitutions and retain plenary power to make laws covering anything not preempted by the federal Constitution or federal statutes. Nearly all states started with the same British common law base, although Louisiana law has always been strongly influenced by the French Napoleonic Code, but the passage of time has resulted in enormous diversity in the laws of the states. Over time, state courts expanded the old common law rules in different directions (through their traditional power to make law under stare decisis), and state legislatures passed various statutes expanding or overriding such judge-made rules.
Unlike other common law jurisdictions, all American states have codified some or all of their statutory law into legal codes, which was an idea borrowed from the civil law through the efforts of American lawyer David Dudley Field. New York's codes are known as "Laws." California and Texas simply call them "Codes." Most other states use "Revised Statutes," "Compiled Statutes," or some other name for their codes. California, New York, and Texas have separate subject-specific codes, while all other states and the federal government use a single code divided into numbered titles.
In some states, codification is often treated as a mere restatement of the common law. Judges are free to liberally interpret the codes unless and until their interpretations are specifically overridden by the legislature. In other states, there is a tradition of strict adherence to the plain text of the codes.
The advantage of codification is that once the state legislature becomes accustomed to writing new laws as amendments to an existing code, then the code will usually always reflect democratic sentiment as to what the current law is.
In contrast, in jurisdictions with uncodified statutes, like the United Kingdom, it is much harder to determine what the current law is. One has to trace back to the earliest relevant Act of Parliament, and then identify all later Acts which purported to amend the earlier Act or which directly overrode it. For example, when the UK decided to create a Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, it had to identify every single Act referring to the House of Lords that was still good law, and then amend all of them to refer to the Supreme Court.[2]
However, American codes are not the direct equivalents of their civil law counterparts (see civil code), and should not be confused with them. American codes do not have complete internal logical coherence nor do they currently aspire to such a status. They have been labeled mere "collections of statutes" due to the failure of all levels of government to allocate adequate resources towards maintaining the internal coherence of the codes.[3] What were intended to be elegant restatements of the common law have become bloated with a variety of chaotic ad hoc additions that would be unthinkable in civil law jurisdictions.[4]
Even worse, some states were never able to reconcile the old common law lawmaking model with the concept of codification. For example, California codes are to be liberally construed as a continuation of the common law to the extent that they harmonize with the common law or pre-code statutes. This hopelessly confusing compromise has created a continuing state of chaos in the judge-made law of California statutory interpretation.[5]
Criminal law
In the arena of criminal law, all states have somewhat similar laws in regard to "higher crimes," such as murder and rape.
However, for public-welfare offenses where the state is punishing merely risky (as opposed to injurious) behavior, there is significant diversity across the various states. For example, the laws controlling drunk driving were rather unstandardized prior to the 1990s. yuaiai jdjddduudbb kdkdkd
Tort law
United States tort law for personal injury tends to vary widely across the states. For example, a few jurisdictions allow actions for negligent infliction of emotional distress even in the absence of physical injury, but most do not. With practically any tort, there is a "majority rule" adhered to by most states, and one or more "minority rules."
Attempts at "uniform" laws
Efforts by various organizations to create "uniform" state laws have been only partially successful. The two leading organizations are the American Law Institute (ALI) and the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL). The most successful and influential uniform laws are the Uniform Commercial Code (a joint ALI-NCCUSL project) and the Model Penal Code (from ALI).
Apart from model codes, the American Law Institute has also created Restatements of the Law which are widely used by lawyers and judges as substitutes for long, tedious citations of old cases (in order to invoke the long-established principles contained in those cases).
Local law
States have delegated lawmaking powers to a staggering number of agencies, counties, cities, and special districts. And all the state constitutions, statutes and regulations are subject to judicial interpretation like their federal counterparts.
Thus, at any given time, the average American citizen is subject to the rules and regulations of several dozen different agencies at the federal, state, and local levels, depending upon one's current location and behavior.
Odd exceptions
Unlike the rest of the country, as noted above, state law in Louisiana is based on the Napoleonic Code, inherited from its time as a French colony. Puerto Rico is also a civil law jurisdiction. However, the criminal law of both jurisdictions has been necessarily modified by common law influences and the supremacy of the federal Constitution.
California is a common law jurisdiction with a few features borrowed from the civil law. Besides the codification noted above, it has a community property system for the property of married persons. Also, the California Civil Code shows civil law influences in that the law of contracts is treated as part of the law of obligations (though the rules actually codified are clearly derived from the common law).
See also
Acts and Codes
- United States Code
- Controlled Substances Act
- Digital Millennium Copyright Act
- Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act
- Sudan Peace Act
- False Claims Act
Lists
Pranala luar
- Texts of US federal laws and US state laws
- U.S. Code collection at Cornell University's Legal Information Institute
Rujukan
- ^ Elizabeth Gaspar Brown, "Frontier Justice: Wayne County 1796-1836," dalam Essays in Nineteenth-Century American Legal History, ed. Wythe Holt, 676-703 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976): 686.