You lost me on this post Hoov.

Assigning value to public statments is not particular to ether Napoleonic or English Common law.

Napoleonic Law is codified. That is the law is laid down and cannot be change unless another law replaces it or refined it.

So it's laws on public pronucncments are made in a legislative body. Venezuela may have laws that a more "liberal" or even "non-existant" in this sense than are similars laws say in France, another country that also uses Napolenonic law.

English Common Law, by contrast, is a living breathing thing that evolves as time passes. It typically does so through the court interpretation of the original law that establishes a body of precedent.

Hence, Americans wait with bated breath for their Supreme Court rulings as that is the latest "intrepretation" or "precendent" of the of the law.

Thus under English Common Law, a law can alter or change from the court itself, whereas a country in a Napolenonic system the law can only be changed or modified by the body of goverment that created the original law.

Bottom Line: the differnece between the two systems are how laws can be modified and amended over time; not what the laws actually are. You could have a laws that would permit one to say anything under either system. Thus its not really the system's legal principles that afford one to "say virtually anything you want to down there", it would be the particular governmental body who made such laws.

An important distinction...in my book.