By the time of 1960, the Cypriot legal system was closely related to the English legal system of the United Kingdom. Judges and lawyers engaged in the practice of law were therefore provided with an abundance of legal material.
Right after the year 1960, the Cypriot legal system experienced some significant changes that rely for every independent state. Some of the aspects were expounded in treatises by the Cypriot lawyers. However, the small local development about law texts and the absence of the law faculty at the Cyprus University has discourage the production of major legal work to guide practitioners and students of the Cypriot Law.
The limited audience and the small market is the reason behind why so little has been written about the Cypriot Law. However, in contrast to Cyprus population, the island has a wide legal history. Cypriot law is an example of comparative law and a mixture of legal systems including those.
A starting point of the Cypriot law was the Greek ‘legal’ system of city-kingdoms of the island and influenced by other neighboring legal systems such as the legal system of Babylonia, Assyria and Egypt. Though, permanent influences to the Cypriot law came during the Roman and Byzantine periods, as the introduction of the Roman law and its codification by Justinian. Later, the second codification of the Leon the sixth, and latter on by the growth of religious law. Years later, the French customary law first and then the Turkish law and the concepts of Sharia were brought to Cyprus, followed by the English law since 1878. now, two different types of legal systems the Anglo-Saxon and the Continental, apply co-existence in different public spheres.
