Belgium

• The Constitution of 1831 (heavily amended), which made Belgium a federal state
• Federal statutes, plus decrees of the regions and communities in the areas that belong to them
• The Civil Code, which goes back to the Napoleonic code and is being rewritten in stages
• European Union law and the European Convention on Human Rights

• The Court of Cassation, which checks that lower courts applied the law correctly (it does not retry the facts)
• The Council of State, for disputes with public authorities
• The Constitutional Court, which reviews laws
• Courts of appeal, tribunals of first instance and justices of the peace

A master's degree in law, then a traineeship of about three years with a bar association and its professional training, followed by registration with a Dutch-speaking or French-speaking bar.

• Power is divided by subject between the federal state and the regions and communities, and the Constitutional Court polices that division.
• The system works in three official languages: Dutch, French and German.
• The Court of Cassation reviews only questions of law, as in France.
• Belgium kept the Napoleonic Civil Code for over two centuries and has only recently begun a full rewrite.

France, Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, Italy

The University of Ottawa’s JuriGlobe database lists Belgium as: Civil law. It names the systems in order of importance.

The map colours a country by the first-named system, and shows both civil-law and common-law countries as “mixed”. It is a simplification, and real systems are rarely pure.

Albania, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso.

• Constitutional Court of Belgium
• Court of Cassation of Belgium

Sources last reviewed: October 2026.