Civil and Public Law

In many countries a distinction is made between private (or civil) and public law. Civil law concerns disputes among citizens within a country, and public law concerns disputes between citizens and the state, or between one state and another.

The main categories of English civil law are: Law of Contracts; binding agreements between people (or companies); Law of Torts: wrongs committed by one individual against another individual's person, property or reputation; Law of Trusts, arrangements whereby a person administers property for another person's benefit rather than his own Land Law; Probate Law: arrangements for dealing with property after the owner's death; Family Law.

The main categories of public law are: Criminal Law: wrongs which, even when committed against an individual, are considered to harm the well-being of society in general; Constitutional Law: regulation of how the law operates and of the relation between private citizen and government; International Law: regulation of relations between governments and also between private citizens of one country and those of another.

In codified systems there are codes that correspond to these categories, for example, France's Code Civil and Code Penal. Justinian's Roman codes covered such areas of law as contracts, property, Inheritance, torts, the family, unjust enrichment, the law of persons, and legal remedies, but said little about criminal law. Consequently, most Continental criminal codes are entirely modern inventions.

Most countries make a rather clear distinction between civil and criminal procedures. Although some systems, including the English, allow a private citizen to bring a criminal prosecution against another citizen, criminal actions are nearly always started by the state. Civil actions, on the other hand, are usually started by the individuals.

In Anglo-American law, the party bringing a criminal action (that is, in most cases, the state) is called the prosecution, but the party bringing a civil action is the plaintiff. In both kinds of action the other party is known as the defendant. A criminal caseagainst a person called Ms. Brown would be described as "The People vs.(= versus, or against) Brown" in the United States and "R. (Regina, that is, the Queen) vs.Brown" In England. But a civil action between Ms. Brown and a Mr. White wouid be "Brown vs. White" if it was started by Brown, and "White vs. Brown" if it was started by Mr. White.

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