Article 17 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. Legal capacity of a citizen

The concept and essence of a citizen’s legal capacity

What is the legal capacity of citizens? This is a legally significant category that gives a person the opportunity to have their legal rights and bear certain obligations that are established by civil law.

In other words, the legal capacity of citizens is the opportunity for an individual to act as a subject of legal relations.

A similar definition is legislatively enshrined in Art. 17 Civil Code of the Russian Federation.

Legal capacity, like any other legal concept, has its own characteristics and characteristics, which include:

inalienability;
abstractness.

As for such a feature as inalienability, in this case we are talking about the inseparability of civil legal capacity from the existence of the subject of legal relations. In other words, as long as a person is alive, his civil legal capacity will exist.

If we talk about the abstractness of legal capacity, then in this case we can talk about the possibility of each subject to have both rights and obligations enshrined in the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. In other words, a person may take advantage of the opportunity presented by the legislator or may not realize his rights.

What is the difference between legal capacity and legal capacity?

Legal capacity and legal capacity are related concepts that are often confused. They are both elements of the legal status of a citizen.

simply being born is not enough to achieve full legal capacity .

There are at least two conditions:

reaching adulthood (emancipation or marriage before age 18);
sanity.

Legal capacity is the ability to exercise rights and fulfill obligations, that is, to be active in legal relations.

For example, parents registered an apartment for their child. Formally, the baby has property. But the exercise of the right will become available after reaching 18 years of age. Then, if desired, he (already an adult) will be able to sell the apartment, rent it out to tenants, register or discharge individual tenants.

Basic aspects of legal capacity

The key aspects and features of civil legal capacity are that:

Its occurrence and, accordingly, its cessation is possible in practice only once. A large number of questions arise about what happens to a person’s legal capacity at the time of his death. If medical evidence serves as evidence of the death of a person, then legal capacity is completely terminated, since it is inalienable. But what if the death is recorded by a court decision? In this case, two main nuances should be considered: a. if a person died before the judicial authority made a decision to declare him dead, then his legal capacity ceases at the moment of his death; b. if a judge declares a person dead, but in fact the person is alive, then in fact such a decision does not become a determinant of the termination of civil legal capacity.
The legal capacity of government agencies and the law is recognized by every citizen of the Russian Federation without exception. In other words, it accompanies a person from the moment of his birth until his death. Thus, the emergence of legal capacity occurs even in newborns. If after birth the child lived for a certain period of time, then he is recognized as an active subject of law. Therefore, it can be concluded that viability is not considered a fundamental determinant for the emergence of legal capacity.
However, despite the above aspects, legal capacity should not be considered one of the natural properties of a person. This is due to the fact that such an opportunity to exercise personal rights appears only by force of law. In other words, legal capacity has legal characteristics.

Subjects of family relations

Persons granted the status of family man (only after the official registration of marriage relations) are considered to be subjects of family relations. Each person has his own family members, but as a general rule they include:

A married couple.
Parents of the husband and wife (in other cases this may be an adoptive parent, guardian, trustee).
Children born from a joint marriage or minors adopted by a married couple.
Elder family members - grandparents.
Other subjects of family legal relations are siblings, stepfather and stepmother, stepsons and stepdaughters.

Relationships between members of the same family are conventionally divided:

For relationships between a married couple (this also includes divorced persons).
Between children and their parents.
Between other members of the family community.

Based on these definitions, we can conclude: the relationships that arise between relatives or spouses are family relationships.

Contacts between family members should be built on trust and mutual understanding; they have exclusively personal properties. The state practically does not regulate private relationships between family members, but as for the material side, here the Law can act as a regulator of relations.

The legal status between members of a family society is associated with a specific person and cannot be transferred to third parties. However, you can simultaneously perform responsibilities that differ in functionality: for example, being a husband and father.

State guarantee of the legal capacity of citizens

Legal capacity is acquired by each person regardless of his status, age, or state of health. Moreover, the scope of rights and obligations is equal for all subjects. The only guarantor of the legal capacity of citizens of the Russian Federation is the state. This is regulated by Art. 17 Civil Code of the Russian Federation.

Today, there are several main types of guarantees of respect for individual rights and freedoms, in particular:

Political guarantees. In this case, we are talking about the fact that it is the citizens of the state that are recognized as the source of power. At the same time, there are certain types of people's power: direct and representative (through authorized representatives of government agencies).

Economic guarantees. They represent material benefits and conditions, thanks to which every citizen can put into practice all types of their rights and responsibilities. However, the economic component of guarantees of the legal capacity of citizens at the present stage of development of society is in decline. Many free services, including education and healthcare, have become unavailable to subjects of legal relations, which makes it impossible to put into practice many of the rights and freedoms prescribed in the legal acts.
Legal guarantees. In this case, we are talking primarily about the system of legal norms, through which the conditions and limits for the exercise of civil rights and freedoms on the territory of the Russian Federation are fixed. In addition, the Constitution of the Russian Federation plays a special role in this case as the fundamental law, since it is in this legal act that the fundamental principles of civil legal capacity are enshrined.
Organizational guarantees. This type arises from legal guarantees, as it has a direct connection with them. Legal guarantees alone will not be enough to ensure that individual rights and freedoms are realized. This requires special bodies that will provide significant assistance in the implementation of the rights granted to each subject.

Thus, we can conclude that the main guarantor of the legal capacity of citizens is the state law, which establishes the basic conditions and limits for the implementation of the capabilities of each subject of legal relations.

What categories of citizens in the Russian Federation have delict capacity?

Legal capacity, as we know, automatically arises in every Russian citizen at the time of coming of age - at 18 years of age.

However, it can happen earlier if, for example, a teenager gets married at the registry office at the age of 14 or 16 (in different regions of the country), and also if he is emancipated at the age of 16 as an individual entrepreneur. Legal capacity may be limited or deprived.

It occurs automatically, but this does not mean that it occurs instantly. Capacity increases gradually as the child or teenager grows up. And the capacity for tort is directly involved in this process of growth.

Delinquency of minors

Let's see how minors develop their legal capacity and at what point delictual capacity appears. Until a certain age, all children are completely incapacitated - this is the age from 0 to 6 years. Older children acquire the status of minors with partial legal capacity, which are divided into minors (age 6–14 years) and minors (age 14–18).

On their sixth birthday, minors have a small amount of transactional ability - for example, they can go to the grocery store without adult accompaniment. After receiving a passport (remember that this is the age of 14), the scope of transaction capacity expands - they can independently, at their own discretion, manage the scholarship, earnings, and deposits.

And from this moment on, teenagers already begin to bear responsibility, that is, they receive tort liability. First of all, they themselves are responsible for causing harm.

Before this, all responsibility lay with their parents. But even now it is not removed, but becomes subsidiary. That is, if a teenager does not have enough funds to bear property responsibility, the parent is obliged to make up for the deficiency.

But this rule works in cases where the child has his own source of income (which is understandable, because pocket money in most cases is given by the parents and in fact belongs to them).

Teenage entrepreneurs, even in our time, are not so common (although much more often than before), but a much larger number of guys manage scholarships.

We examined tort liability from the point of view of civil law - property and personal non-property relations. But this category is also significant in criminal, administrative and labor law. The amount of criminal liability that a person can potentially incur also increases with age:

14 years - responsibility for grave and especially grave crimes (for example, murder, intentional infliction of grave or moderate harm to health, and others);
16 years - full responsibility for any crime of any severity.

That is, the capacity for delinquency itself is increasing. In administrative law, it arises overnight when a citizen of the Russian Federation reaches the age of 16.

In labor law, a disciplinary sanction can be applied to an employee at any age (and an employment contract can be concluded as early as 14 years old).

Tort capacity of adults

In theory, delinquency, having appeared once, should not disappear. And there are even cases when a competent citizen is deprived of his legal capacity (for example, the right to dispose of his earnings or other income), but does not lose his tortious capacity. This is a punitive and educational measure for the following categories of citizens:

addicted to alcohol, drugs or gambling, if this addiction puts the family in a difficult financial situation (things begin to disappear from the house, for example);
having a mental disorder, but not so severe that they are not aware of the consequences of their actions;
spendthrifts - partially capable teenagers aged 14–18 years who spend their earnings unwisely if this harms the interests of the child or family.

In the latter case, the court either completely deprives the teenager of the right to dispose of his earnings, or reduces its amount (for example, 80% to the parents, the rest to the child).

Upon reaching adulthood, this restriction will disappear automatically. In the first category, bargaining power will be restored only if behavior changes.

An adult Russian may lose his tort liability along with his legal capacity. The right to make such a decision is exclusively with the court if there are compelling reasons. In general, the presumption works here - you are legally capable until someone proves otherwise. But in fact, you need to prove the combined presence of the following two grounds:

medical - the presence of a mental disorder diagnosed by doctors;
legal - the citizen’s lack of understanding and awareness of his actions and their consequences.

Moreover, the second must necessarily be a consequence of the first, and this can only be established with the help of a forensic psychiatric examination - outpatient or inpatient. In this case, legal capacity can be returned with the same success with which it was taken away.

In short, tort liability is a real threat of liability for one’s illegal actions. Children under 14 years of age do not have it, as well as citizens deprived of legal capacity (and with it delictual capacity) by a court decision in the presence of a mental disorder. This appears in both civil and criminal, administrative and labor law.

Sources:

About the concept of legal capacity

On the legal capacity of minors over 14 years of age

About emancipation

On declaring a citizen incompetent

Origin and termination of legal capacity

Partially, this article has already addressed the question of how the emergence and termination of civil legal capacity occurs. Now let's take a more specific look at this problem.

Clause 2 of Art. 17 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation enshrines the classic definition of the moment at which the emergence and termination of the legal capacity of citizens occurs. Turning to the letter of the law, we can conclude that legal capacity arises at the moment of birth and ends with death.

However, despite the unambiguous interpretation, practicing lawyers have a lot of questions here. In particular, I am interested in the nuance that concerns the conversation about the extent to which civil legal capacity arises in the first minutes of a person’s life: in full, or do only its individual elements become available?

Despite the fact that civil legal capacity is equal for all subjects of civil relations, this does not mean that the full range of rights and freedoms becomes available to newborns. This is due to the fact that some rights can be put into practice only after reaching a certain age. We are talking about entrepreneurial activity, the creation of legal entities, etc.

As for the issue of termination of rights, everything is very clear here. A person is alive, and his legal capacity exists. If the death of a citizen is established (by court or by an extract from a medical record), then legal capacity is considered completely terminated.

Thus, we can conclude that the topic of the emergence and termination of civil legal capacity is one of the most relevant in legal practice and requires more detailed study that will eliminate all conflicts and gaps in the legislation.

Is it possible to take away a person's rights?

In Roman law there was the institution of “civil death”, which implied the complete deprivation of a citizen’s legal capacity. The person lost his freedom and was declared an outlaw. His property was transferred to the state or creditors.

In the legislation of some European countries, the institution of “civil death” existed until the mid-19th century.

In modern developed countries, depriving a person of legal capacity is not allowed. The exception is the death penalty.

However, rights can be limited . For example, foreigners are not entitled to hold certain government positions. And property can be confiscated as punishment for a crime committed.

The question of embryo rights

The problem that concerns determining the legal status of an embryo affects the minds of not only Russian but also foreign scientists. That is why this issue is given increased attention both in international and civil law.

To understand this vital topic in more detail, you should understand who is an embryo?

An embryo is a living organism that is at the stage of its development from the moment of direct fertilization to birth.

However, in the scientific literature there is no uniform approach according to which the moment at which the rights of the embryo are protected by law is established. Therefore, in practice, the legal status of the embryo has not been determined to this day.

Despite such shortcomings, scientists and practicing lawyers identify two main approaches to resolving the issue of embryonic rights:

Author of the article

Rights of minors aged 14 to 18 years

Minors with partial legal capacity have the right:

- make transactions with the written consent of their legal representatives - parents, adoptive parents or guardian;

- manage your earnings, scholarships and other income;

— exercise the rights of the author of a work of science, literature or art, invention or other result of his intellectual activity protected by law;

— in accordance with the law, make deposits in credit organizations and manage them;

- make small household transactions and other transactions.

From the age of 16, one more thing is added to these rights: minors from the age of 16 also have the right to be members of cooperatives in accordance with the laws on cooperatives.

Why are only rights mentioned?

When considering the emergence of the legal capacity of individuals, the current legislation speaks only of rights, but does not directly mention responsibilities. Meanwhile, paragraph 1 of Article 17 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation also defines the ability of individuals to “bear responsibilities.” Here the legislator pays exceptional attention to rights, because they are the main element in the content of legal capacity. However, there is also an indirect indication of the second category.

The law interprets an obligation as a relationship of a legal nature, by virtue of which the debtor undertakes to perform a specific action in favor of the creditor or to refrain from it, and the creditor is given the right to demand from the debtor the fulfillment of this obligation. As it turned out, the right to participate in obligations is also interpreted as the acquisition of obligations. It is important to know that the right to own this or that property is also associated with these obligations.

Subjective right and legal obligation as the content of a legal relationship

The legal relationship has material, volitional and legal content. The material, or factual, constitutes those social relations that are mediated by law; volitional - state will, embodied in a legal norm and in the legal relationship that arose on its basis, as well as volitional acts of its participants; The legal content is formed by the subjective rights and obligations of the parties (subjects) of the legal relationship.

Legal regulation is carried out mainly through the mechanism of subjective rights and legal obligations, which is precisely why it differs from any other normative regulation, for example, moral regulation. These rights and obligations, corresponding to each other within the framework of a certain legal relationship, act as its legal content.

Subjective right is defined in legal science as the type and measure of possible or permitted behavior of a person guaranteed by law, and legal obligation - as the type and measure of proper or required behavior. The basis of subjective law is a legally enforceable possibility; The duty is based on a legally established necessity. The bearer of the possibility is called empowered; the bearer of the duty is the legally obligated person. The first can perform certain actions; the second is obliged to fulfill them.

The structure of subjective law. Subjective law is a certain legal possibility, but this possibility is multifaceted; it includes at least four elements:

the possibility of positive behavior of the most authorized person, that is, the right to one’s own actions;
the ability to demand appropriate behavior from a legally obligated person, that is, the right to the actions of others;
the ability to resort to state coercion in the event of failure by the opposing party to fulfill its obligations (claim);
the opportunity to use a certain social benefit on the basis of this right.

In other words, subjective right can act as right-behavior, right-demand, right-claim and right-use.

Depending on the nature and stage of implementation of a particular subjective right, one of the indicated possibilities, usually the first, may come to the fore. In general, all four components in their unity constitute the content and structure of subjective law as a general concept. It serves as a means of satisfying the interests of the authorized person.

A characteristic feature of subjective law is a measure of behavior ensured not only by the law, but also by the obligations of other persons. Otherwise, this is not a subjective right, but a simple permissibility (permission, non-prohibition), which follows from the legal order operating in society according to the principle “what is not prohibited is permitted.”

Each of the fractional components of subjective law is usually called authority. Different rights have more or less of them, for example, in the right of property there are three: possession, use and disposal of property; in social and political rights - up to five to seven. For example, the right to freedom of speech includes the ability of a citizen to speak at various meetings and rallies, publish in print, have access to radio and television, criticize shortcomings, make suggestions, engage in literary and artistic creativity, etc.

However, the general structure of subjective law remains fourfold, because, abstracting from the many types of rights, it reflects their main and most typical properties.

The structure of legal obligation corresponds to the structure of subjective law, being, as it were, its reverse side, and also includes four components:

the need to perform certain actions or refrain from them;
the need for a legally obligated person to respond to the legal demands of the authorized person addressed to him;
the need to bear legal responsibility for failure to comply with these requirements;
the need not to prevent the counterparty from using the benefit to which he has the right.

A legal obligation is established both in the interests of the person authorized and in the interests of the state as a whole.

She is the guarantor of their implementation.

Subjective law is the right of the subject of a legal relationship.

Here the adjective “subjective” reflects:

Firstly, the right belongs to the subject.

Secondly, its dependence on the subject - in contrast to the rule of law, which does not belong to anyone personally and does not depend on the will of a particular individual.

In this sense, a legal obligation can also be qualified as subjective. Within the framework of a legal relationship, the rights and obligations of subjects are equally subjective. The components of a legal obligation are a kind of separate obligations - like powers in subjective law.

It is important to emphasize that the legal content of legal relations is not the actual actions of the parties themselves, but only the correspondingly possible and proper ones, that is, those provided for by law.