Criminal law and civil law
Being a lawyer is one of the greatest privileges one can hope to achieve. Of course you will hear the astronauts and teachers say otherwise but one is always a little soft to one’s profession. My career path was set by my father who himself was a practicing lawyer in the state of Illinois. His meticulous study of a case, finding arguments and loopholes were enough to attract my young mind to a career in law.
But my greatest push would always be Mr. Howard Westbury, an eminent advocate as well as my teacher at law school. I remember his first class pretty well. He came in with his brown briefcase, dusted something off the desk and with a loud “thud” put his briefcase on the desk. After introducing himself a little bit and taking the trouble to get to the names of all those who were in his class. Within a few minutes, he posed his first question: What is criminal law vs civil law?
Now most of us knew the basics of the terms criminal and civil laws and we blurted quite a few of it out. Mr. Howard however looked far from impressed. “Criminal law vs Civil law is something that is central to our understanding of law!” he said. Apparently we spoke a lot on the technical side of the differences but failed to capture the essence of the question.
Both these set of laws were defined on the culture followed by countries. So, you would find a set of laws that fall under civil litigation in one country while the same would fall under criminal litigation in another. Take for example, the case of blasphemy. While in many non secular countries of today, blasphemy is a crime that could be punishable by death, it need not be so in the rest. Secular countries may simply mark it “improper” and let the person go with a soft fine.
Civil here may be criminal there
These laws also change much over time. In the middle ages, the European countries were always under the rule of religious authority whereas today, the scenario is vastly different. Law is a dynamic concept and will keep changing.
The technicality of the laws such as criminal prosecutions being pursued by the state and civil cases being pursued by individuals are all true of course. But what matters is, when you study law, you need to understand the essence of the words that rule us.