Western legal tradition

The article is written in the manner of comparative law, that is an important direction of the development of modern theoretical and practical jurisprudence. It defends the idea that the knowledge of the fact that the Western legal tradition is represented by two main legal systems: Roman-Germanic (continental) and Anglo-Saxon (island, precedential) is of crucial importance for the proper understanding of its peculiarities. At the same time, it notes that the Western legal system is much more complex, it is not represented only by these two legal systems. Other legal systems, which relate to the first two as their branches, subtypes can be selected for analytical purposes. Particular attention is paid to constitutionalism as the phenomenon of the Western legal tradition, which in present conditions has an extremely important influence on the social and legal development in the world as a whole