 My name is Amy Goymor, and I'm one of the lecturers in the Cambridge Law faculty. I'm going to say a few words about one of the subjects I teach, Civil Law 1, which is also known as Roman Law. That is the law that the ancient Romans used. In Cambridge Roman Law is a first year subject, and it's actually a compulsory subject. You won't find it taught in many other law schools. Why in Cambridge do we regard it as an essential first year paper? A hynny'n dweud y cwrs yng Nghymru, y bydd y rhomannol yn dillunio a gwahanol. First of all, rydych chi'n gweithio'r cyfnodd, rydych chi'n gweithio'n gweithio. Rhomannol y bydd y bydd yn gweithio'n gweithio y system efallai, nid ynglynig a nhw'n cyfrifiadau, a dyda hwnnw, yr edrych yn eich gwirio, y bydd y rhomannol yn gweithio'n gweithio. A'r llaw Romanoes yn cael Llywodraeth Llywodraeth yn fath o'r system cymryd yn cymryd. Mae'r gwaith yn ôl yn y ddau ffwrdd, ond Llywodraeth Llywodraeth yn gweithio'r llaw yma, ond yna'r llaw yma yn cymryd o'r llaw, os yna'n gwybod yn ffwrdd. Felly, mae'n rhai bod yn ei ddweud ymlaen o'r Llywodraeth Romanoes, yn y cymryd o'r Llywodraeth Pwysigol 1. Mae'n gwneud yn y gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio, ac yn cael ei wneud i chi weld rydw i'r cynnwys iawn amlaen i'r Parwyr. Ychydig, maen nhw'n gylau Rhomion yn gwneud, unig i ffasenidol, ac mae'r cerdyn effeithio yn amlêffgodol, yn ei wneud yn gwneud gweld bod yn cymdeithlo'r parwyr. Dyma'r yrddw i'n gwneud gossipau yr unrhyw i'r Prifysgol. Roedd Rhomion yn gwneud, oherwydd, mon â'r Llanfaenol ac yn ffasenio i'r rhomion yn holl y modern ddeu. elevator flynyddiad yn gwybodol. yn part. Fy rwy'n gweithio'r rhomans had slaves and therefore they had law to govern the holding of slaves. Thankfully that's not relevant today. But actually many of the factual scenarios that Roman law had to govern equally arise today. For example people used to sell things, they used to have disputes over who owned things, they used to have disputes when one person injured another. We have exactly the same factual scenarios today which English law also has to provide answers to. So the idea that Roman law isn't relevant and the answers the Romans provided to these problems isn't relevant just isn't true because we have to provide solutions to exactly the same sorts of problems. Now in Cambridge our Roman law course is divided into three parts, the law of property, the law of contract and the law of wrongdoing, what they called the law of delict. And we look at all of these three parts. Now I'm just going to give you an example from the law of property just to illustrate that the Romans had to find solutions to exactly the same sorts of problems that we have today. Now the example is very straightforward. Imagine that A owns a chariot, it is stolen by a thief, party B. B then sells the chariot to a purchaser who is innocent and doesn't realise the chariot's been stolen. The purchaser has enjoyed using the chariot. B the thief is paid the money and runs away, never to be seen again. A manages to track down that chariot and wants it back. But C argues that it should be his because he paid good money for it and didn't know it was stolen. So this is the problem, should A get the chariot back or should C get to keep it? And this is a problem that the Romans had to solve. Both of these parties are innocent parties. Should we prefer the first owner or should we prefer the later purchaser? It was a dilemma and the Romans decided to resolve that dilemma by allowing party A to get their chariot back. Now in English law you can imagine that we have to solve exactly the same question. The chariot could of course be a bicycle or a computer or a car and we have to decide which of these two innocent parties A or C gets to keep the item of property when it's stolen and sold on. Now English law tends to adopt much the same solution as the Romans did, which is an interesting insight. A generally will get to get the item back except in a few exceptional circumstances. So hopefully that shows that Roman law offers a really interesting insight into another legal system's response to everyday problems. Now let's go back to the second concern that somebody looking at Roman law might have as to its relevance today. The idea that Roman law was a simplistic system compared to the many hundreds of pages that make up English law today. Now I'm going to offer you three reasons why actually it's definitely worth looking at Roman law even though it was a more simplistic system than our legal system today. First of all it's actually a real bonus that Roman law can be found in just four books. This means that you can get to grips with a whole legal system in just one year and you can get a really nice overview of the subject and how different parts of the subject actually fit together. You will never ever even if you study and practice law for the rest of your lives get to grips with the whole of English law there's just too much of it but you will do that with Roman law and you will get to see how the law of contract fits with the law of property and fits with the law of delict making those connections will make you a really good lawyer. Secondly the Roman law even though it was ancient was actually exceptionally good. The Romans were very very good at building roads and they were equally good at creating law and developing an advanced legal system. So Roman law yes it's ancient but it's definitely worth studying. Thirdly many European systems are directly built on Roman law for example German law and French law have directly built on Roman law when they created their civil legal code so if you ever wanted to go on and study those legal systems having a base in Roman law would actually be very very useful. Now English law isn't directly built on Roman law it's a different type of legal system but there are parts of English law that do directly draw on Roman law. Some of the most recent Supreme Court decisions have actually quoted parts of ancient Roman law when reaching a decision. So hopefully this has given you something of an insight into Roman law and all that it has to offer.