Wikipedia Louisiana: The French Legal Tradition

            Picking up from last week, where we discussed the Louisiana Purchase, let’s explore Louisiana’s unique legal and administrative system that is descended from French legal traditions.  

            The laws and legal traditions that characterize Louisiana’s justice and governmental systems are different from every other state in the United States. Since Louisiana was originally founded as a French colony (and later became a Spanish one), its legal and administrative structures are derived from French and Spanish legal traditions. These traditions, in turn, stemmed from Roman legal principles. The other 49 states all rely on traditions descended from English common law—since the 13 original colonies were all founded by the English. Over the years, Louisiana lawmakers have bridged many of the differences between these traditions, but significant differences remain. The first is that courts based on the English common law tradition tend to rule based on precedents and are generally bound by them. The logic underlying this principle is that following precedents ensures equal and fair administration of the law. In Louisiana, judges are allowed to make rulings based on their own interpretations of law. The differences between Louisiana’s French and Roman legal traditions especially manifest themselves in civil and family law. As a result, the Louisiana bar exam is the longest of any state, taking twenty-one and a half hours.  

The 19th century seal of Louisiana 

            It is commonly and erroneously claimed that Louisiana’s legal tradition is based on the Napoleonic code. This is not true. While Louisiana’s civil code shares the same antecedents as the Napoleonic Code, the Napoleonic Code did not go into effect in France until 1804, a year after Napoleon had sold the Louisiana territory to the United States.  

            The administration of the state of Louisiana also differs from the other 49 states. Louisiana is divided into 64 parishes rather than counties. Functionally, parishes serve similar functions to the counties found elsewhere in the United States. Forty-one parishes have a form of government known as a police jury. The police jury serves as the legislative and executive government of the parish and together the police jurors elect a parish president. The size of police juries vary from three to fifteen members depending on the size of the parish.  When Louisiana joined the United States, each parish had a parish judge and justice of the peace who were appointed by the governor. Voters then elected the policy jury which was responsible for maintaining the peace and supporting the judicial branch. 

Louisiana's Parishes

            The remaining parishes have a variety of different governmental structures. The majority of the parishes have split the executive and legislative functions between two branches. They use a council-president system where the voters elect a parish president and legislative council separately.  Caddo Parish, located in northern Louisiana elects a parish council which then hires a professional manager to run the government. A smaller number of parishes, mostly in the major metropolitan areas, have merged the parish and city governments together. So New Orleans and Orleans Parish, Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish, Lafayette Parish and Lafayette, and Terrebonne Parish and Houma all have consolidated governments.  

            Another area where Louisiana is different from the United States is how the state runs its elections. Next week, we’ll take a look at Louisiana and its jungle primary system.