Law of Germany

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The law of Germany (German: Recht Deutschlands), that being the modern German legal system (German: deutsches Rechtssystem), is a system of civil law which is founded on the principles laid out by the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, though many of the most important laws, for example most regulations of the civil code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, or BGB) were developed prior to the 1949 constitution. It is composed of public law (öffentliches Recht), which regulates the relations between a citizen/person and the state (including criminal law) or two bodies of the state, and the private law, (Privatrecht) which regulates the relations between two people or companies. It has been subject to a wide array of influences from Roman law, such as the Justinian Code the Corpus Juris Civilis, and a to a lesser extent the Napoleonic Code.