The law we have talked about so far is the individual right, which corresponds to the obligation of commutative justice. Commutative justice governs the relationships of members of human society with each other and aims to ensure that each member gives to their colleagues what belongs to them equally. In addition to this commutative justice, there is also legal and distributive justice; these virtues govern the relations between entire societies (State and Church) and their members. From the inclinations and needs of human nature, we recognize that the state is based on a divine decree; only in the state can man earn a living and develop according to his nature. But if the Divine Creator of nature has desired the existence of the state, He must also want the means necessary for its maintenance and the achievement of its ends. This can only be found in the right of the State to demand from its members what is necessary for the common good. It must be empowered to enact laws to punish violations of such violations and, in general, to regulate everything for the common good, while the members themselves must be subject to the obligation corresponding to that right. The virtue that leads all members of society to bring what is necessary to maintain it is called legal justice, because the law must determine on a case-by-case basis what burdens must be borne by the members. According to Catholic doctrine, the Church, like the State, is a complete and independent society, which is why she must also be entitled to demand from her members all that is necessary for her well-being and the achievement of her goal. But the members of the State do not only have obligations to the general organ; You also have rights. The State is obliged to distribute the public burden (e.g. taxation) according to the powers and capacities of the members and is also obliged to distribute public goods (offices and honours) according to the degree of dignity and services.
These functions of the general organ or its directors shall be fulfilled by a right of the members; They can demand that leaders comply with demands for distributive justice, and if the authorities do not, it is a violation of members` rights. Law, as a substance (my law, its law), refers to the object of justice. When a person declares that he is entitled to a thing, he means that he has some kind of domination over such a thing that others must recognize. The right can therefore be defined as a moral or legal authority to possess, claim and use something like one`s own. It is therefore essentially different from the obligation; Because of an obligation, we should do or refrain from doing something because of a right. Again, the law is a moral or legal authority and, as such, it is different from mere physical superiority or primacy; a thief who steals something undiscovered has physical control over the object, but has no rights over it; On the contrary, his act is an injustice, a violation of the law, and he is obliged to return the stolen object to its owner. The law is called moral or legal authority because it stems from a law that assigns dominance over the matter and imposes on others the obligation to abide by that rule. The right of a person corresponds to an obligation of others, so that the law and the duty condition each other. If I have the right to demand one hundred dollars from a person, he is obliged to give them to me; Without this obligation, the law would be illusory. It can even be said that a person`s right is that others are obliged to do or refrain from doing something because of their bill.
B. In the treatment of proclamation, a distinction must be made between the natural moral law and the positive law. The first is proclaimed to all men by the natural light of reason; Positive laws are revealed by special outward signs (word of mouth or writing). The natural moral law is a law that is inextricably linked to human nature; Positive law, on the other hand, does not. With regard to the origin or source of the law, a distinction is made between divine and human laws, since they are enacted directly by God Himself or by men by virtue of the power granted to them by God. If man is simply God`s herald or messenger when he promulgates a law, the law is not human, but divine. Thus, the laws that Moses received from God on Mount Sinai and proclaimed to the people of Israel were not human laws, but divine. In addition, a distinction is made between the laws of the Church and the State, as promulgated by the authorities of the State or Church. Laws are divided according to their origin in legislative and statutory law. Normative or customary law includes laws that are not enacted by direct decree of the legislature, but by long-standing customs of the community.
But not all customs lead to a law or a right. To become law, a custom must be universal, or at least followed freely and with the intention of making it law by a significant part of the population. It must also be a long-standing custom. After all, it must be useful for the common good, for it is an essential condition of any law. Custom derives its binding and binding power from the tacit or legal approval of the legislator, because any true law binds those to whom it is imposed. It alone can impose a binding obligation on a community to which the supervision of the community or the authority of the jurisdiction over it is delegated. If the legislative power belongs to a people itself, it may impose an obligation on itself as a whole, if it does not have that power, the obligation can only be formed with the consent of the legislator (see ZOLL). On the basis of the above-mentioned legal concepts, its purpose can be determined more precisely. There are three types of law and justice. The object of the law, which corresponds to impartial justice, is to ensure freedom and independence in the use of their own property for the members of human society in their relations with each other. For the object of law can only be the good, the realization of which we recognize as necessary and which it brings intrinsically, and this good is the freedom and independence of each member of society in the use of his own. If man wants to freely perform the tasks imposed on him by God, he must have the necessary means for this purpose and have the freedom to use them independently of others.
He must have a sphere of free activity in which he is free from the interference of others; This goal is achieved through the law that protects each from the encroachments of the others in the free use of their own. Hence the proverbs: “A consenting person does not suffer injustice” and “No one is forced to exercise his rights”. For the object of the law, which corresponds to commutative justice, is the freedom of the right holder in the use of his own, and this right is not realized when everyone is obliged to always exercise and insist on his rights. The purpose of the law, which corresponds to legal justice, is the good of the community; With regard to this right, we must not say that “no one is obliged to exercise his right”, since the community —or, more precisely, its leaders – must exercise public rights when and where the good of the community so requires. Finally, the right that corresponds to the objective of distributive justice is the defense of members against the community or its leaders; They must not be burdened with public burdens that go beyond their powers and must receive as many public goods as they become a condition of their merits and services.