Environmental Law

1. Can you identify any strengths or weaknesses of the common law system as compared with the civil law system?

I can say that there are some advantages and some disadvantages

Advantages:

- The common law is more flexible when compared to the civil law, as the plaintiff can ask for compensations for certain cases that are not fully legislated or have specific law covering it, rather than waiting for the legislators to change the current law or even debate and pass a new law.

- We can say that the common law has a better data base to draw from in comparison with the civil law, as it has been adopted for more than hundreds of years (almost a thousand year) so most of the cases can be analyzed and studied to when is being made regarding a current case.

Disadvantages

- The laws are not stated in a clear, obvious and distinctive language like the civil law were all the law are undoubtedly and clearly stated.

- The common law gives great powers to the judges, as they literary create law when they rule in a case as this case will be used as a precedent in the coming cases, which is always not preferred when compared to the civil law in which the law creation is given to the legislators who are elected and they have extensive debates and discussions before any law is passed.

4. Why do you think legislatures throughout Canada are relying more on tribunals to further regulatory scheme? What are attributes of tribunals that are beneficial in this regard?

As a consequence of technological innovations, expanding pressures on limited resources, rising public expectations, and other related factors, problems in different sectors as environment became more complex. As a result the need for specialized tribunals to be established to deal with particular with conflicts in those sectors.

In many provinces, matters pertaining to landlord and tenant issues, immigration, human rights, licencing, property assessment, social benefits, to name but a few, are dealt with by tribunals.

Therefore we can say as tribunals are more specialized than courts in certain cases and problems they are better equipped in dealing with those problems.

5. What are the advantages and disadvantages of alternative dispute resolution?

Advantages.

- It is far more cost-effective than going to court.

- Takes less time

- More inclusive as you allow to have experts in the field from all parties meet to discuss areas of common ground and differences in a collaborative setting rather than the formality of a court or