Hi Clive,

Public law includes constitutional law, administrative law and criminal law. It covers such areas as transport, the environment, education, planning rules, taxation etc.

Private law deals with the relations between individuals. It covers such areas as contract, tort, property rights, family law etc.

If you want to build a house:

You need to get the necessary permits from the relevant authorities: this will be covered by the planning laws which are part of public law.

You also need to make sure that you own the land you want to build on, that where necessary you have appropriate rights of access and for services over neighbouring land and that there are no restrictions enforceable by the neighbours: this will be covered by real property law which is part of private law.

In the case you quoted both public and private law are involved. The thief can be prosecuted by the state and you can sue for compensation.

There is not necessarily a hard and fast distinction and to a certain extent what is classed as one or the other may depend on the type of legal system.

Forbes

P.S.

Are you a fan of Carlos Gardel?

In U.S., private and public laws are numbered like this: 

Private Law 105-2 

Public Law 107-3

(Type of law - Session number - bill number)

These numbers are assigned after the bill, be it S.130, H.R.1234, or H.J. RES 2, is passsed.

Vincent:

I found an article which appears to resolve the question to some extent. Following is a quotation from the article:

With a total of over 25.000 employees and an annual turnover of over 3 thousand million DM, the four University Hospitals in Baden-Württemberg enjoy the status of large commercial enterprises and should therefore be run as such, rather than as subordinated authorities. For this reason the State converted the hospitals to independent public-law institutions as from the 1st of January 1998. This new legal status allows the Hospital’s executive and supervisory bodies to make their own independent decisions in respect of all requisite and appropriate measures for the welfare of the Hospital, its staff and, particularly, for the care of its patients. State administrative regulations are no longer applicable.

It would appear that a public law insitution is one that is authorized by law to act independently of the government. It seems this may be a case of privatization of certain facilities that were once under the supervision of government officials.

I agree Clive. If the phrase were public institution, it would be confusing, assuming, of course that I've fallen into the right interpretation of the phrase. What it looks like is an institution, that would otherwise be governmental in nature (or was formerly a government institution) that, through the enactment of some public law, has been given some degree of independence and therefore is called a public-law institution, emphasizing its origin. The public/private descriptor probably changes depending on what your perspective is. From within the government, a spin-off company is probably being "publicized," however from the perspective of a private citizen, the goverment is probably "privatizing" the company. Interesting. Apparently, the government has control of the phraseology in this respect.

On another note: I felt a little silly when I noticed that I had responded to a posting that was more than a year old. I probably provided an answer (or at least surmised one) for a person who has long since stopped checking for one. Being new to fora like this, it is something to be cognizant of before wading into a long-defunct conversation. In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, "Doh!" (Please tell me you guys have the Simpsons across the Pond!)

Cheers,
Karl