The United States, Saudi Arabia, and Germany use different substantive laws to govern areas where such laws are applicable. Substantive laws, in this case, are laws that can either be private or public and regulates the behaviors of citizens in a country. It is critical to understand the similarities and differences between the substantive laws in these countries for general legal knowledge or for adherence by those who would like to visit the states.
Definitions of Criminal Responsibility
Criminal responsibility is the ability to understand criminal conduct when a crime is about to occur. It can also be the state of mind when a person commits a crime. In other cases, the term means the expectation after committing a crime. The three countries slightly vary in the manner of defining and interpreting the term criminal responsibility. In the United States, criminal responsibility means having adequate knowledge to understand the context of crime. In this sense, the United States’ common laws held that criminal responsibility is about committing a prohibited act under guilt mind. In the United States, the minimum age for criminal responsibility varies by states, but the country holds 18 years old offenders at the national level ( Hanna, 2018).
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In Germany, criminal responsibility's definition depends on the states of mind when the action takes place. For instance, a child at the age of 14 years or an adult is not responsible for a crime committed if the child or adult is immature and has some mental issues. In this manner, the states of an offense do not count much in Germany, but brain development and the psychological make-up at the time of the crime. In Saudi Arabia, the law is stringent. In this country, the offense is what makes a person criminally responsible. Möller (2018) claims that a ny person committing an offense is responsible despite the age or the state of mind. In this country, for instance, there are no juvenile laws.
Similarities and Differences in Substantive Law
There are similarities and differences among the substantive laws in the three countries. In the United States, for instance, substantive laws come from the common laws and the state legislature. The societal customs in the United States are the sources of the common laws and are critical in the build-up of the substantive laws guiding the United States. In America, the Common Law is a made-up set of statutes and case law that governed England and the American colonies before the American Revolution. However, the government, through the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), has put in strategies to make common laws uniform for all citizens in all states.
In Germany, however, there is no common law. The foundation of the legal system in this country is civil laws with a comprehensive compendium of statutes. The substantive laws in the legal tradition of Germany are under the guidance of the Roman laws that were dominant in the country many centuries back. The civil laws in the country thus have categories of codes that govern specific areas, just like the common laws in the United States. In Saudi Arabia, things are different from Germany and the USA. The content of the substantive laws depicts the traditional Islamic rulings and religion. The laws in this country are the adoption of the royal decree, and the interpretation of the substantive laws links to the Interpretation of the Quran and the Sunna (Thomale & Weller, 2017). Further, the Saudi religious establishment is the foundation of the substantive laws in the country. A critical similarity between the traditional substantive laws in the countries is that they have categories of applications, and the jury needs to prove them beyond reasonable doubt before a ruling.
The Type of Policing
In the United States of America, the policing model is a more decentralized system of policing. In this country, every state and community has an opportunity to run its police station and departments. However, the state police department has no right to prevent federal investigation in the case which the states have jurisdiction. At the same time, the community department has no right to prevent any state’s investigation of criminal issues over which the community has jurisdiction. In Germany, however, the police system is centralized. In this country, the police forces are tripartite. The police force comprises of an independent municipal police force for the capital city, a national police force for all other cities, and a militarized gendarmerie for the countryside. In Saudi Arabia also, the police model is decentralized. In this country, there is less limit on policing.
The forms of judicial review can take within each country
Judicial review in the United States and other countries are meant to balance the power and keep the most powerful branches under check. The judicial review thus helps in avoiding overuse or abuse of power. In the USA, judicial review is common and has led to many landmark rulings in the country, such as that of abortion. It can take the form of expanding constitutions, change the interpretation of the law, and change the context of the law, as seen in the case of Roe v. Wade (1973) ( Costelloe, 2019). In Germany, the courts have the laws at hand for judicial reviews when necessary. They can take the form of interpreting the law differently, changing the context of the law, limiting the areas under the law, and also reforming some laws to make a formal and critical ruling. However, they do not have the mandate to declare any law in their country as invalid. In Saudi Arabia, judicial review is limited because of the monarchy rule, which has a powerful influence on law formation and interpretation.
References
Costelloe, D. (2019). Response to the Review of Legal Consequences of Peremptory Norms in International Law. Israel Law Review , 52 (1), 119-122.
Hanna, M. P. (2018). The Substantive/Procedural Distinction: Law's Solution to the Problem of Jus Cogens in a World of Sovereign States. German Law Journal , 19 (1), 21-42.
Möller, L. M. (2018). Law: Modern Family Law, 1800-Present: Gulf States. Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures Online (Supplement XVII), General Editor Suad Joseph, First published online .
Thomale, C., & Weller, M. P. (2017). Freedom of establishment/persons (European Union) and private international law. In Encyclopedia of Private International Law (pp. 807-811). Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.
