Classifying the Legal System of the Philippines: A Preliminary Analysis with Reference to Labor Law

  • Petra Mahy University of Oxford. Visiting Professor to the School of Labor and Industrial Relations (SoLAIR) at the University of the Philippines.
  • Jonathan P. Sale SOLAIR, UP Diliman
  • Jonathan P. Sale SOLAIR, UP Diliman

Abstract

In some recent international literature on comparative law and economics, the Philippines has been misclassified as a civil law family country. This paper provides a corrective to this view by tracing the foreign influences on the Philippine legal system as a whole, and on the development of labor law specifically, to demonstrate that American common law influence has far outweighed that of the Spanish civil law heritage. However, this is only part of the story, as in the post-colonial era, the law of the Philippines has progressively reflected local political and economic conditions and in many instances has developed without any direct reference to external models. Hence, this paper argues that the Philippines is more rightly classified as a hybrid legal system dominated by common law traditions, but that such a classification will still not adequately describe the nature of the current system.

Author Biographies

Petra Mahy, University of Oxford. Visiting Professor to the School of Labor and Industrial Relations (SoLAIR) at the University of the Philippines.
Postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford. During July-August 2013 she was a Visiting Professor to the School of Labor and Industrial Relations (SoLAIR) at the University of the Philippines.
Jonathan P. Sale, SOLAIR, UP Diliman
Dean and Associate Professor of the School of Labor and Industrial Relations (SoLAIR) at the University of the Philippines. He is a member of the Philippine Bar.
Jonathan P. Sale, SOLAIR, UP Diliman
Dean and Associate Professor of the School of Labor and Industrial Relations (SoLAIR) at the University of the Philippines. He is a member of the Philippine Bar.
Published
2021-02-28