The totality of all laws and other regulations that can affect citizens in a state is referred to as objective law. Objective law is the totality of all legal provisions.

Subjective law, on the other hand, describes the specific legal situation for an individual or group. For example, the right of asylum for a citizen is not a subjective right, but it is part of the objective right. The same applies to commercial or labor law, also from a child’s point of view: it could in no way invoke it because there are no subjective points of reference. On the other hand, there are laws that freetik.net need to adhere to.

Objective law also includes things that many people have never heard of

Common Law

Not only written law and laws belong to objective law. If a behavior corresponds to years of practice, it can thereby become valid. It’s called common law. There are therefore also rules that have not been written down anywhere, but which must also be adhered to. It used to be an important source of law, especially between states.

Of course, today everything is written down and given a certain form to be on the safe side. But many people are no longer aware that this does not necessarily have to be the case. The idea is not alien to civil law either – if private individuals accept each other’s behavior and always pursue it, the courts can count this exercise as part of the contract in the event of problems.

State treaties

In principle, international treaties do not confer any rights or obligations on citizens but only work between states. That is why people are rarely interested in them and they are not very well known. Usually, no person can refer to them or sue them for anything.

But there is another way: because there are still sometimes valid rules from abroad that do not originate from national legislators and are aimed directly at citizens. These are human rights, for example, because they directly confer subjective rights. Whether a state treaty confers rights or obligations directly on the individual is decided by the signatory states through their formulations.

Objective law – the most important thing in a nutshell

In terms of content, objective law is the sum of all legal provisions. Whether they have an objective or subjective effect can only be determined through interpretation.