This seminar is designed to give the students deep comprehension of judicial systems in different legal traditions of the world. The course will especially focus on Mainland China, Taiwan, and Japan as representing the civil law tradition and Canada, Australia, and the United States as representing the common law tradition. The students can learn the similarity and difference between these two legal traditions through examinations of historical background, constitutional system, judicial review, judicial system, legal profession, interpretation and judicial process and civil and criminal procedure.

CILO-1: Students will be able to distinguish the differences between civil law and common law systems. CILO-2: Students will be able to compare systematically the judicial systems of some representative countries. CILO-3: Students will be able to develop critical thinking on how different countries establish their judicial systems based on different cultural, economic and social backgrounds.