CIVIL LEGAL PERSONALITY OF PHYSICAL ENTITIES: THE CONTENT EVOLUTION

Abstract

The article is devoted to the memory of the outstanding Russian scholar Dmitriy I. Meyer (1819—1856) — the ancestor of Russian civilistics who declared that the rights of individuals depend on different circumstances that are, to some extent, natural and, to some extent, historical. Meyer’s statement that “there are different degrees of insanity: sometimes it is stronger, sometimes weaker” turned out to be accepted by the Russian legislator only in 2015 by making appropriate changes in the Russian legislation regarding the problem of legal capacity of citizens. The paper has investigated the evolution of the content of legal personality of individuals in the field of private legal relations, including family relations, as well as in the field of relations complicated by a foreign element, i.e. in the field of private international law. On the basis of the analysis, the author explores a civil legal personality of a natural person category as her ability to be a subject of civil law including such elements as capacity and legal capacity. Civil capacity should be understood as a legally equal abstract opportunity for everyone to have civil rights and duties. It is unacceptable to consider capacity as a subjective right to have the right: this leads to an unjustified doubling of the category of “subjective right” and hinders a proper understanding of the mechanism of civil regulation. The article investigates the subjective right as implementation of capacity of a particular person, and, therefore, citizens being legally equal in their capacity, to be not equal in the presence of specific subjective rights that constitute the content of their capacity in the abstract form. The authors have analyzed the amendments to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation introducing a new basis for limiting the legal capacity of citizens, as well as taking into account the degree of actual reduction of the ability of citizens to understand the meaning of their actions or to be in control of such actions. The article analyzes the conflict-of-laws principles of determination of capacity and legal capacity of foreign citizens. Jurisprudence, along with the recognition of the national regime of foreign citizens on the territory of the Russian Federation, indicates the need to apply foreign laws in determining the civil capacity and legal capacity of foreign nationals. The article analyzes the private law component of the institute of retortions the immediate purpose of which is to protect private rights and legitimate interests of Russian citizens. Thus, the content of the concept of civil personality of natural persons in the field of private law relations that consists of such categories as capacity and legal capacity evolves into the recognition of equality and the protection of the interests of all persons on the basis of the principles of justice, humanity and reasonability. At the same time, the State secures legal guarantees applied for the completion of the legal capacity of minors and certain categories of adult citizens through institutions of parental responsibility, guardianship and custody and establishes procedural guarantees of observance of the rights of these persons in judicial proceedings.