Puerto Rico

• The Constitution of Puerto Rico of 1952, and the United States Constitution as it applies
• The Civil Code of Puerto Rico, in the Spanish tradition, for private law
• Federal law, and American common-law rules for evidence, procedure and criminal law
• Decisions of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico

• The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, the highest local court
• The Court of Appeals, and the Court of First Instance
• The federal District Court, with appeals to the First Circuit and the United States Supreme Court

A law degree, a bar exam in Puerto Rico and admission by the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico. Lawyers work in Spanish and English.

• It is one of the few places in the United States with a civil-law private law, like Louisiana.
• Local courts work in Spanish, while the federal court works in English.
• People born there are United States citizens, but have no vote in Congress.

United States, Spain, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Colombia

The University of Ottawa’s JuriGlobe database lists Puerto Rico as: Civil law, Common 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.

Botswana, Cameroon, Cyprus, Guyana, Israel, Lesotho, Malta, Mauritius, Namibia, Northern Cyprus, Philippines, Saint Lucia, Seychelles, South Africa.

• JuriGlobe: world legal systems (University of Ottawa)

Sources last reviewed: October 2026.