Public law

That branch or department of law which is concerned with the state in its political or sovereign capacity, including constitutional and administrative law, and with the definition, regulation, and enforcement of rights in cases where the state is regarded as the subject of the right or object of the duty, —including criminal law and criminal procedure, —and the law of the state, considered in its quasi private personality, i. e., as capable of holding or exercising rights, or acquiring and dealing with property, in the character of an individual.

See Holl. Jur. 106, 300.

That portion of law which is concerned with political conditions; that is to say, with the powers, rights, duties, capacities, and incapacities which are peculiar to political superiors, supreme and subordinate. Aust. Jur. "Public law," in one sense, is a designation given to "international law," as distinguished from the laws of a particular nation or state. In another sense, a law or stafute that applies to the people generally of the nation or state adopting or enacting it, is denominated a public law, as contradistinguished from a private law, affeeting only an individual or a small number of persons.

Morgan v. Cree, 46 Vt. 773, 14 Am. Rep. 640.