public law

noun

1

: a legislative enactment affecting the public at large

2

: a branch of law concerned with regulating the relations of individuals with the government and the organization and conduct of the government itself compare private law

Examples of public law in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The project enhances community space by adding a new public law library, ground-floor retail spaces and a parking garage. —Jane Tyska, The Mercury News, 10 July 2024

He’s been implicated in covert endeavors like trying to transform a broke liberal arts college into a capitalist incubator and rename a public law school after one of the Supreme Court’s staunchest right-wingers. —Nina Burleigh, The New Republic, 16 May 2023

Under her leadership, the college rose from #24 to #6 among public law schools, according to the U.S. News law school rankings. —Michael T. Nietzel, Forbes, 9 Mar. 2023

Professor Johannes Chan, the chair of public law at Hong Kong University, believes the law’s enforcement will inevitably extend to other areas of citizen action, such as peaceful advocacy of what Beijing chooses to regard as subversive speech or acts. —Lavender Au, The New York Review of Books, 5 June 2020

Word History

First Known Use

1531, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Legal Definition

public law

noun

1

: an enactment of a legislature that affects the public at large throughout the entire territory (as a state or nation) which is subject to the jurisdiction of the legislature or within a particular subdivision of its jurisdiction : general law

called also public act, public statute

compare local law sense 1a

2

a

: the area of law that deals with the relations of individuals with the state and regulates the organization and conduct of government compare private law

b

: international law regulating the relations among sovereign states or nations as distinguished from private international law