Private and Public Law

2020 ◽  
pp. 574-592
Author(s):  
Thomas W. Merrill
Keyword(s):  
Law And Economics ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Private Law ◽  
General Criterion ◽  
The Public ◽  
Private Ordering ◽  
Public Rights ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Derivatives Of

This chapter explores the relationship between private and public law. In civil law countries, the public-private distinction serves as an organizing principle of the entire legal system. In common law jurisdictions, the distinction is at best an implicit design principle and is used primarily as an informal device for categorizing different fields of law. Even if not explicitly recognized as an organizing principle, however, it is plausible that private and public law perform distinct functions. Private law supplies the tools that make private ordering possible—the discretionary decisions that individuals make in structuring their lives. Public law is concerned with providing public goods—broadly defined—that cannot be adequately supplied by private ordering. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, various schools of thought derived from utilitarianism have assimilated both private and public rights to the same general criterion of aggregate welfare analysis. This has left judges with no clear conception of the distinction between private and public law. Another problematic feature of modern legal thought is a curious inversion in which scholars who focus on fields of private law have turned increasingly to law and economics, one of the derivatives of utilitarianism, whereas scholars who concern themselves with public law are increasingly drawn to new versions of natural rights thinking, in the form of universal human rights.

Public/Private

2020 ◽  
pp. 466-480
Author(s):  
Jean-Bernard Auby
Keyword(s):  
Essential Feature ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
Private Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines the distinction between public law and private law. It stresses the importance of being aware of this difference between the public/private and public law/private law dichotomies. The public–private divide is universal even if, from one society to another, it can be conceived differently in certain ways. All human communities have an idea about the relationship between the private sphere and the public domain. By contrast, the distinction between public law and private law is not universal. It may be ignored, rejected, or confined to a very limited sphere of operation as, traditionally, in common law systems. Conversely, the public law/private law distinction may be understood as an essential feature of the juridical world, as was the approach of Roman law, inherited by the continental legal systems.

Part I General Principles, 3 International Law as it Affects Private Law Conventions Governing Cross-Border Commercial Transactions

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Commercial Law ◽  
Typical Structure ◽  
The Public ◽  
State Security ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Domestic Law

Chapter 3, after describing general principles of international law and the relationship between international law and domestic law, focuses on the hitherto neglected subject of private commercial law conventions. Textbooks on international law invariably focus on public law treaties. By contrast this chapter addresses issues relating to private law conventions. It goes through the typical structure of a private law convention, the interpretation of conventions and the treatment of errors, and the enforcement of private conventional rights against States. The subject of private law conventions and public law has become of increasing importance with the appearance in several private law instruments of provisions of a public law nature designed, for example, to ensure that creditors’ rights are not enforced in a manner that adversely affects the public interest or State security. Reservations and declarations are also discussed, together with the subject of conflicts between conventions.

Preventive Duties under Private and Public Law scilicet spei permultum sed rei paulum

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (103) ◽  
pp. 51-71
Author(s):  
Dariusz Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Contract Law ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Civil Code ◽  
Insurance Contract ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
European Insurance ◽  
The Relationship

The article aims at discussing preventive obligations incumbent on the insurer and other entities of the insurance relationship, in particular on the policyholder. The analysis takes into account comparative legal aspects, and therefore refers to the Principles of European Insurance Contract Law (PEICL). The author emphasizes the evolution of the provision of Article 826 of the Civil Code, which has changed his views on the scope of the preventive obligation under insurance contract. He points out the possible differences of interpretation as to the scope of the prevention as well as the issue of the insurer's reimbursement of costs due to its implementation by the policyholder. What is more, the relationship between public and private law standards has been presented, with a particular focus on Article 826 of the Civil Code. Finally, de lege ferenda conclusions have been presented.

Part VI Rights—Structure and Scope, Ch.38 The Constitutionalisation of Indian Private Law

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Balganesh Shyamkrishna
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Contract Law ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Property Law ◽  
Private Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines the relationship between private law and constitutional law in India, with particular emphasis on tort law. It considers the Indian Supreme Court’s expansion of its fundamental rights jurisprudence over the past thirty years, as well as its effort to transcend the public law/private law divide. It also explains how the Court’s fusion of constitutional law and tort law has affected the independent efficacy, normativity, and analytical basis of equivalent private law claims in India. It argues that the Court’s efforts have only undermined the overall legitimacy of private law mechanisms in the country, and that this phenomenon is evident not only with respect to tort law, but also to a lesser degree in other areas of private law, such as contract law and property law.

Realising the Public Potential of Corporate Law: Twenty Years of Civil Penalty Enforcement in Australia

2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Welsh
Keyword(s):  
Law And Economics ◽  
Public Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Corporate Law ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Primary Role ◽  
The Public ◽  
Enforcement Mechanisms ◽  
Civil Penalty

Traditionally corporate law has been viewed as having characteristics that are commonly associated with private law. Largely this view developed as a result of the “law and economics” scholarship which dominated the corporate law debate, especially in the United States, in the last quarter of last Century. While the traditional “law and economics” approach supports the view that corporate law should be treated as a branch of private law, and that the state should have no role in its enforcement, other scholars, particularly those that adopt a progressive approach, argue that corporate law has, and should be recognised as having characteristics that are usually associated with public law. Arguably, an area of Australian corporate law that displays characteristics that are usually associated with public law is the statutory directors’ duties and the civil penalty regime that supports them. This enforcement regime gives the state through the corporate regulator, standing to take court based proceedings to enforce what are in effect, contracts that established corporate governance structures. This article seeks to determine the appropriate role of a public regulator in these circumstances. The questions considered are: whose interests should the public regulator represent when it is tasked with the responsibility of enforcing the statutory directors’ duties that largely codify fiduciary and common law duties? Given that the duties are owed by directors to their company should the primary role of the public regulator be to represent the interests of the company, and its shareholders, who have suffered a loss as a result of the alleged contravention of the directors’ duties or should the primary role of the public regulator be to act in the interests of the members of the larger community? In these situations what are the interests of the larger community? Drawing on regulatory theory the argument advanced in this paper is that despite the fact that the statutory directors’ duties codify what are in effect private rights between directors and their companies, the primary role of a public regulator is not to utilise the enforcement mechanisms at its disposal in order to obtain compensation for companies who have suffered a loss. Rather, the regulator's primary role is to act in the interests of the larger community by utilising the enforcement mechanisms at its disposal strategically in order to encourage greater compliance.

User Property, User Rights, and User Privileges

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pascale Chapdelaine
Keyword(s):  
Public Law ◽  
Copyright Law ◽  
Future Application ◽  
Private Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
Freedom Of Contract ◽  
Competing Interests ◽  
Regulatory Changes ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
User Property

This chapter proposes two principles that should inform the development of copyright law and policy and of user rights. The first calls for more cohesion between copyright law, private law, and public law, and for less exceptionalism in copyright law. The second requires that the balance in copyright law be adjusted for its future application as a mediation tool between the competing interests of copyright holders, users, intermediaries, and the public. Instituting positive obligations for copyright holders in relation to users and steering freedom of contract toward the objectives of copyright law are necessary regulatory changes to rectify ongoing imbalances. The principle of technological neutrality should guide the judiciary in its application of copyright’s objective of promoting a balance in copyright law. The proposed guiding principles lead to the creation of a taxonomy and hierarchy of copyright user rights that take into account the myriad ways users experience copyright works.

Write–Reach–Repeat

2020 ◽  
pp. 1083-1093
Author(s):  
Robin M. Boylorn
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
The Internet ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Future ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter considers the role, importance, and impact of public intellectualism on the future of qualitative research. The chapter argues that the move toward technology and the public dissemination of information via the internet requires a shift in how and what we research with an expressed intention of reaching a broader and nonacademic audience. The chapter considers the relationship between the private and public sphere, and the so-called “bastardization” of intellectualism to explain the role and rise of public intellectualism in qualitative research. By considering issues such as personal subjectivity, accountability, representation, and epistemological privilege, the chapter discusses how public contexts inform qualitative research and, conversely, how qualitative research can inform the public.

The Public Form of Law: Kant on the Second-Personal Constitution of Freedom

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariel Zylberman
Keyword(s):  
Public Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Public ◽  
Relational Norm ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe two standard interpretations of Kant’s view of the relationship between external freedom and public law make one of the terms a means for the production of the other: either public law is justified as a means to external freedom, or external freedom is justified as a means for producing a system of public law. This article defends an alternative, constitutive interpretation: public law is justified because it is partly constitutive of external freedom. The constitutive view requires conceiving of external freedom in a novel, second-personal way, that is, as an irreducibly relational norm.

13. The nature of judicial review

2020 ◽  
pp. 277-308
Author(s):  
Neil Parpworth
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Private Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
Procedural Reform ◽  
Actual Decision ◽  
Public Bodies

Judicial review is a procedure whereby the courts determine the lawfulness of the exercise of executive power. It is concerned with the legality of the decision-making process as opposed to the merits of the actual decision. Thus it is supervisory rather than appellate. Emphasis is also placed on the fact that the jurisdiction exists to control the exercise of power by public bodies. This chapter discusses the supervisory jurisdiction of the courts, procedural reform, the rule in O’Reilly v Mackman, the public law/private law distinction, collateral challenge, and exclusion of judicial review. The procedure for making a claim for judicial review under the Civil Procedural Rules (CPR) 54 is outlined.

Improperly Collected Taxes: The Border Between Private and Public Law

2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-161
Author(s):  
Sagi Peari
Keyword(s):  
Public Law ◽  
Legal Philosophy ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Alternative Framework ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Constitutional Right ◽  
Normative Rule

In recent years, Professor Birks’ doctrine of constitutional right to restitution has become a new normative rule with respect to the issue of restitution of improperly collected taxes. Nevertheless, the new doctrine has puzzled academic scholars. Profound questions regarding the conceptual “private law-public law” location of Professor Birks’ doctrine and the current status of traditional law doctrines have arisen.This study challenges Professor Birks’ doctrine and demonstrates that despite its universal adoption, the doctrine was based on weak premises. Furthermore, based on Professor Weinrib’s legal philosophy, this study develops an alternative framework to analyze the issue of improperly collected taxes. The study shows that the “private-public” puzzle and the doctrines traditional to improperly collected taxes may be coherently explained within this legal philosophy.

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