Law is one of the most extensive, complex and important topics in world jurisprudence. It is the system of rights that provides society with the regulation of its relations and establishes certain orders, following which greatly facilitates our life. This article will examine in detail the substantive and procedural branches of law - the two main branches that every citizen needs to know about.
Definition of law
For starters, it is worth defining the very term “right”. What does it mean?
Law is a list of certain rules and norms established in society, which are regulated by legislation. These norms and dogmas are responsible for regulating relations between the subjects of the social environment and for creating a certain system of communications within it, in which the personal rights of all people (to life, freedom, education, etc.) remain inviolable.
Functionsrights
Before moving on to certain branches of law, it should be explained what the functions of law are and what they are.
The functions of law are the primary, most important features and characteristics of the impact of legal norms on the creation of order and the regulation of relationships between the subjects of society. They reveal the very essence of the legal system, its goals and objectives. These functions are expressed by the following points:
- The list of all legal functions and their content directly depend on the root essence of the law itself and its place in the system of the whole society (according to which, in different countries there are completely different types of legal systems).
- All functions in this list are stable enough, that is, they do not change over time. They also carry out such regulated control and supervision over social processes, without which society simply cannot do (there would be nothing to replace them in the same way).
- The direct legal “stuffing” of all these functions, in contrast to their list as a whole, is quite dynamic and can change under the influence of any external factors or in connection with a change in the course of the political and legal system of the state (which, however, should be seriously justified by a valid political reason).
- Legal functions are characterized by a systematic approach, that is, they are expressed, as a rule, through legal processes and phenomena of a different kind than the law itself.
The main task of law
The main goal facing substantive and procedural administrative law, as well asbefore any other kind of law, is the creation of an orderly system in which all relationships between social subjects will be organized and regulated. These relationships, respectively, are based on those models of behavior that provide for the norms of international law.
The main functions of law, reflecting its main task, are as follows:
- Regulatory function takes care of ensuring the order of establishing competent relationships in society, determines the rights and obligations, as well as how to use them by subjects of legal and social relations.
- The protective function ensures the protection of the rights of a particular individual from violations by other subjects of public relations or persons involved in state activities. Also, this important function regulates the ways in which the violator is further responsible for his legal violations.
- Evaluation function allows you to give any act or public action a behavioral assessment based on the principle of legality or its absence in this particular situation.
- The function of influencing the behavioral models of people and their consciousness from the point of view of social integration is a function according to which the subjects of social relations somehow form any kind of social attitudes, develop their own system of motives based on the vision which is dictated by law. Promotesformation of ideology.
Definition of substantive law
Substantive law is a term related to jurisprudence, which denotes a certain set of norms from law in its usual sense; this set is directly responsible for regulating relations between the subjects of society and the economy, that is, the communication of people and their enterprises with each other and with each other. Codes of substantive law stipulate the definition and installation of such important elements of public life as:
- modern forms of property ownership;
- legal status of each of the citizens of the state;
- official powers, rights and obligations of state bodies of executive or any other power;
- measures by which decisions are made on determining the degree of responsibility of citizens for any kind of offense;
- branches of substantive law, the list of which is as follows: administrative, civil, land, constitutional, customs, labor, tax, family, financial, labor, criminal and penal law;
and more.
Thus, the object of such a legal branch as substantive law can be designated as material relationships between people: property, related to family or work, and others. Most of all existing branches of law in one way or another relate specifically to substantive law.
Definition of procedural law
Procedural law is such a branch considered in thisan article of the legal system, which is directly responsible for regulating the system of procedures for the implementation of substantive law and the procedure for the fulfillment by all participants of legal relations of their direct duties (usually associated with legal proceedings). This is the main difference between the two branches presented: international substantive and procedural law differ primarily in their functions.
Procedural law defines and establishes a system of rules that can ensure the correct following of substantive law and its protection. The processes that it regulates by virtue of its legislative powers include:
- the process of investigating a crime of any kind;
- the process of legal assessment and verdict in criminal, arbitration, civil or other constitutionally related proceedings;
- branches of procedural law, the list of which is as follows: arbitration (such procedural law is found exclusively on the territory of the Russian Federation), civil, administrative and criminal procedural.
The substantive and procedural norms of law are directly related to each other and most often depend on each other, although, in fact, the second simply ensures the efficiency of the first. However, on a par with the main legal branches in the Russian Federation, branches called “complex” can stand up - for their formation in response, as a rule, there areseveral major divisions of law. Such complex systems of law include: business, banking, commercial, agricultural, transport law. All the largest branches of law are somehow subdivided into small ones, forming a system with many branches and variations.
Thus, the ratio of substantive and procedural law can be distinguished as the ratio of content and form.
Differences between the two industries
As mentioned above, the two systems of legal regulation considered in this article are inextricably linked to each other, but differ in purpose and objectives. If substantive law is dominant and fundamental, since it is it that is responsible for regulating the relationship of people in society and establishing the order of their interaction in all spheres of public life, then procedural law provides support for material at the judicial level. Its clear and specific prescriptions provide a regulated procedure for conducting all legal procedures, which include:
- indicating the time frame within which the appeal of citizens to certain state bodies is valid in case of violation of their rights;
- establishing an official procedure for calling witnesses;
- establishing conditions for a possible appeal against the verdict issued during the trial;
- determining the job responsibilities of persons involved in the judicial system, as well as in litigation inprinciple.
If there has been a criminal offense, then procedural law ensures the work of the bodies of inquiry and further investigation in a criminal case.
A characteristic feature, including due to which the norms of substantive law differ from the norms of procedural law, is that procedural law is mostly responsible for the systemic regulation of the legal actions of those subjects of the social system that represent the authorities of their country, that is are located in various state structures. This indicates that, by and large, procedural law is a mechanism for serving civil needs, but society undoubtedly needs it for more significant reasons. In particular, because it ensures the effectiveness of legislative processes and the protection of litigation., and the second takes care of explaining exactly how members of society should achieve this.
Legal grounds for judicial override
In this part of the article, we will consider the measures provided for by law that are necessary for implementation in case of violation of the application of substantive and procedural law. The document taken as a basis is the Code of Civil Procedure (State Procedure Code), inwhich we are interested in 363 and 364 articles.
According to the content of these articles, the cancellation of court decisions in some cases can be made not only in the order of cassation proceedings (that is, the cancellation of decisions of lower courts that have not entered into force), but also in the order of supervisory proceedings (cancellation of decisions that have already entered into force) decisions of lower courts or cassation instances).
About violations
Violation of the norms of substantive and procedural law takes place in three specific cases, which are as follows:
- The court in the course of the proceedings did not use the law that should have been used.
- The court in the course of the proceedings took advantage of the law, which was not necessary or strictly could not be used.
- The court during the proceedings incorrectly interpreted this or that law.
Let's take a closer look at violations of substantive and procedural norms of law using examples. The first case becomes probable when the court deals with the decision of any process, without taking into account the rules of law that directly regulate the legal relationship considered in this judicial procedure. An example is the case in which the court refuses to satisfy the plaintiff's request to recover a pecuniary fine from any organization for non-compliance with legally stipulated agreements (in other words, pen alties), although, if you understand the intricaciesof the legislative system, one can find specific articles of the law regulating the payment of this pen alty precisely in those cases, in one of which the plaintiff himself turned out to be. This is a clear violation of substantive and procedural law.
In the event that the court at the official legal level did not indicate which particular law it relied on in the process of making its decision on any case, however, it came to its resolution, guided by the correct legal norm, in no way it cannot be argued that she did not use the correct law to be used in this process. This subtlety can be skillfully singled out by the instance of cassation proceedings, which is obliged to determine the law on the basis of which the conclusions drawn regarding the whole case were made. The conclusion that the court's verdict has no legal grounds is possible only when, in the process of bringing the case to a decision, deviations were made from the law that is responsible for regulating the disputed relations of subjects of law.
The second point is most often based on the banal lack of correct qualification of the legal relations considered in a particular case. The following situation can be cited as an example: the authorities carrying out customs activities filed a lawsuit with the court for the destruction of a car not subject to customs clearance, and the court, violating the norms of substantive and procedural law, applies in this case the norms of another law (for example, civil). This violation is also accompanied bysituations when the court uses some law that came into force some time after the emergence of conflict relations between the subjects of law and cannot be repealed, or a law that legally no longer has any reason to be implemented.
Violation of procedural law
If the law was interpreted incorrectly, this can be determined by the fact that the court applying the law does not have a correct idea of its substantive essence, which means that it makes a conclusion devoid of any true grounds about the rights of the disputing parties, their duties and other nuances related to the case and directly affecting its course. This may include misconceptions about the intricacies of the substantive and procedural branches of law.
It is important to take into account that any violations in the order of the trial, just as procedural rights that do not comply with all the rules for applying the set of legal rules, can become the foundation for making a decision to cancel the court verdict only if this the verdict contributed (or could have contributed) to the fact that the whole court case was resolved incorrectly. The causal relationship between the legal errors made by the court and the consequences suffered by the participants in the legal proceedings, in this case, is established by the cassation proceedings, which, based on all possible criteria, make a decision on a particular process.
In the specifiedabove articles, on the basis of which this section of the article deals with various violations of legal proceedings, there are two important reservations about violations of public and private substantive and procedural law.
According to the first, this or that court verdict cannot be rejected and deprived of its legal force only on formal grounds - this clause will not allow the cancellation of a court decision if it was motivated solely by the elimination of violations committed during the process, which, however, do not have the slightest impact on the final outcome.
According to the second clause, there is a list consisting of certain violations of procedural law, which can in no way be considered as formal and are sufficient grounds for the mandatory cancellation of the court verdict. These violations violate the fundamental rights of citizens of the Russian Federation, which are protected by the Constitution and even the norms of international law, and their presence in legal proceedings means a partial or complete absence of the principles of impartiality, impartiality and justice.
Private and public law
Having considered violations of substantive and procedural law, we proceed to the next section of our article. In the modern legal system, taking into account the current goal and objectives of legal relations, two main regulatory blocks can be distinguished, which are private and public law, which corresponds to the two main branches that are considered in this article.
Private law contains a listlegal norms that are responsible for the implementation of regulatory activities in relation to relationships in society and the protection of the interests of individuals and any organizations and associations that do not work on a state basis. It includes such branches of substantive law as civil, labor, housing, family and others. The most basic building block of private law is civil law.
The following branches of private law are actively emerging in the modern system of civil substantive and procedural law of the Russian Federation:
- medical;
- educational;
- inheritance;
- intellectual property and others.
Thus, the key feature that distinguishes private law in relation to its other branches is its focus on one particular person, solving his problems in the field of social interaction and protecting his rights, whether constitutional or whatever still right.
Public law contains the norms responsible for ensuring control over the legal relations of the state and its constituent parts in the form of legislative bodies with the ordinary civilian population and other subjects of the legal system. Public law protects public interests, that is, the interests of any masses (of course, if they comply with the principle of social significance). It includes such branches of the system of rights of substantive and procedural law as constitutional, financial, criminal, administrative, criminalprocedural, etc. Public law thus regulates relations at the state and interstate levels.
Differentiation criteria
Public and private law are divided, according to modern lawyers, in accordance with the following criteria:
- Interest. This term refers to those interests of the subjects of legal relations that protect the branches we are considering. If private law corresponds to the interests of one particular person, whether it be an individual or a legal entity, then public law is responsible for the interests of public and state structures.
- Item. Public law exposes as its subject the arrangement and successful performance of all its functions by the state and any state institutions, as well as the dominant institutions of law in the civil part, the foundations of the system for regulating legal relations, as well as the principles and industry divisions of international level organizations. The subject of private law is control over financial and personal relationships associated with material or spiritual we alth and personal prerequisites for the participants in these relationships.
- Methods. Using the principle of public law, the bodies executing the legal will of the state have every right to present to any subjects of legal relations specific models of behavior and options for action that must be followed unquestioningly in order to avoid the use of coercive measures by the legislative system. At the same time, citizens have the right to appeal against each of the decisions made by the government in this regard, but if they were taken, then citizens will have to follow them in any case. In private law, the relationship between the subjects of the legal system is based on the principle of equality and voluntariness, that is, all processes for the implementation of the norms of substantive and procedural law, the differences of which we have already considered, in terms of human communication - they all depend solely on the subjects of legal relations themselves. One particular person in the private branch of law is exactly the same partner of the state as large organizations or other large-scale systems of this kind.
- Subjectivity. If public law is concerned with the regulation and supervision of the relationship that arises between private individuals and structures of state bodies, then private law takes over the relationship between all private individuals who do not have any power competencies.
From all of the above, we can conclude that public law corresponds rather to the imperious and subordinating factors of the system of legal relations, while private law ensures the freedom of the rights of individuals and the protection of their personal initiatives arising in the process of interaction with each other in social environment. These branches, just like all the previous ones, are connected with each other, since private law is not able to function correctly without public law because it relies on it and is somehow under its legal protection.
Result
So we have consideredsuch a complex area of legal knowledge as law, and in particular, they studied the substantive and procedural norms of administrative law - and these are the two most important branches of this science. Also, the article considered some other types of data of normative systems, which helped to fully reveal the given topic. We hope that you have found all the answers to your questions during the study of the material, especially regarding the differences between substantive law and procedural law.
