The main criteria for distinguishing between the public law and private law

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of issues concerning the distinction between the public law and private law. It is established that most scholars agree with the expediency of dividing the law into two subsystems – private law and public law. It was found that the main criteria for distinguishing between the public law and private law, such as: 1) the nature of the dominant interest; 2) the difference in the subjects of legal relations; 3) the difference in the method of legal regulation.
 Thus, the criterion of the nature of the dominant interest, allows to distinguish public law, which protects the general, state, public interests, public goods, important not for the individual but for the society, country as a whole. Instead, in private law, the personality interests of the individual (persons) are dominant. The difference in the subjects of legal relations is manifested in the fact that in public law the subject is a person who joins them to exercise their public authority, instead, in private law, a person can exercise the right to enter into legal relations at his own discretion, and the change or termination of private law relations, as a rule, depends entirely on the will of their participants. The difference in the method of legal regulation is manifested in the fact that public law tends to obligations, and private law tends to permits.
 It is proved that public and private law are two sides of the same coin, which exist in inseparable unity and interdependence, and a clear example of this is the area of labor protection, where legal regulation is both private and public.