Divisions of law: Salmond's classification, public and private, civil and criminal, substantive and procedural

1. Salmond’s kinds of law

Salmond, in Jurisprudence, uses “law” in its widest sense as any rule of action, and lists eight kinds:

1. Imperative law — a rule of action imposed by an authority that enforces it, the sense in which Austin used the word (command of the sovereign).
2. Physical or scientific law — statements of the uniformities of nature: the law of gravity, Boyle’s law. They describe, they do not command, and they cannot be broken.
3. Natural or moral law — principles of right and wrong, the rules of natural justice and of conscience. Its sanction is divine or moral.
4. Conventional law — rules agreed upon by persons for their own conduct: the rules of a club, the laws of cricket, the articles of a society. They bind by agreement.
5. Customary law — rules followed habitually by a community that have acquired binding force (see the Unit I note on sources).
6. Practical or technical law — rules for achieving an end: the rules of grammar, of architecture, of good health. Breach means failure, not punishment.
7. International law — rules governing relations between States, resting on treaties and custom.
8. Civil law — the law of the land, applied by the State in its courts. This is what lawyers mean by “law” and is the subject of the divisions below.

2. Divisions of the law of the State

Salmond further divides private law into the law of persons, of property and of obligations (contract and tort). Constitutional law is the highest public law; administrative law deals with the powers and duties of the executive.

3. Substantive and procedural law

Salmond: substantive law is concerned with the ends which the administration of justice seeks; procedural law with the means and instruments by which those ends are reached. The law of theft (BNS) says what theft is and its punishment; the BNSS says how the accused is arrested, investigated and tried; the BSA says how the theft is proved.

• Substantive law determines rights; procedural law determines remedies.
• Substantive law generally operates prospectively; procedural changes usually apply to pending matters, because no one has a vested right in a procedure.
• The line is not watertight: limitation and burden of proof are procedural in form but can decide rights.
• Procedure is “the handmaid of justice”: courts should not let technicalities defeat substantive rights.

4. Crimes and civil wrongs distinguished

The same act can be both. A driver who kills a pedestrian by rash driving may be prosecuted for causing death by negligence under section 106 BNS, and sued by the family for compensation (in practice before the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal). Blackstone’s test is the best summary: civil wrongs are private wrongs; crimes are public wrongs affecting the whole community.

5. The classification of civil wrongs

1. Torts — breach of a duty fixed by law, owed to persons generally, redressible by unliquidated damages: negligence, nuisance, defamation, trespass.
2. Breach of contract — breach of a duty created by agreement, owed to the other party: sections 73–75 of the Contract Act, 1872 give damages.
3. Breach of trust — breach by a trustee of duties under the Indian Trusts Act, 1882.
4. Other equitable and statutory wrongs — quasi-contract (sections 68–72 of the Contract Act), breach of statutory duty, and wrongs under special statutes such as consumer law.

Salmond also distinguishes civil wrongs by remedy: those remedied by damages, by specific relief (injunction, specific performance under the Specific Relief Act, 1963), or by restitution.

6. Criminal law in outline

Criminal law defines offences and their punishments. From 1 July 2024 India’s criminal law rests on three statutes: the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (substantive offences, replacing the IPC), the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (procedure, replacing the CrPC) and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (evidence, replacing the Evidence Act). The basic principles are actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea (an act is not guilty unless the mind is guilty), the presumption of innocence, and Article 20 of the Constitution: no ex post facto criminal law, no double jeopardy and no compelled self-incrimination.

How this is examined

Salmond’s classification is a 16-mark question in the 100-mark paper: give all eight kinds with an illustration each, then the divisions of civil law. “Crimes and civil wrongs” needs the table and the rash-driving example. Use the three new criminal codes, not the IPC and CrPC, as your examples of current law.