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Ziller, Jacques --- "Public Law" [2006] ELECD 205; in Smits, M. Jan (ed), "Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law

Editor(s): Smits, M. Jan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845420130

Section: Chapter 54

Section Title: Public Law

Author(s): Ziller, Jacques

Number of pages: 7

Extract:

54 Public law*
Jacques Ziller


1 Comparative public law, a new discipline?
For years, a large number of legal comparatists seem to have accepted as
true what Henry Puget remarked in 1949: `jusqu'à présent, le droit comparé
a été orienté principalement du côté du droit privé' (Symposium, 1949).
This seems a strange remark if one admits that the first author to develop
comparatism in social sciences was Aristotle and that he did this by com-
paring constitutions. More recently, Montesquieu's `De l'esprit des Lois',
which is at the basis of one of the most commonly acknowledged concepts
of constitutional law, i.e., the theory of a tripartite separation of power ­
legislative, executive and judiciary ­ is certainly a major work of compara-
tive constitutional law. Furthermore, in most countries (with the exception
maybe of the United States of America) handbooks of constitutional law
contain a general conceptual part which is based on a comparison of
different countries' institutional settings and constitutional law, whereas
general introductions to civil law are usually strictly focused on a national
system, or contain at best some references to Roman law. Furthermore,
comparative law has been a methodological component of international
public law which plays a particularly important role in the reasoning of
international courts, especially the Permanent Court of International
Justice between the two world wars, and its successor the International
Court of Justice. Most of the fields where comparative law is being applied
resort to constitutional law or administrative law, more ...