Dogmatic and political-legal justification of real obligations

Abstract

The development of Russian civil law allows us to conclude that such an institution of the general theory of civil law as real obligations (obligatio propter rem) is no stranger to domestic law. At the same time, the existence of some relevant legal rules in federal laws and the recent jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation allows us to confirm the conclusion. It demonstrates that there are more and more examples of real obligations in Russian law. Meanwhile, the possibility of the very existence of real obligations in Russian law remains a controversial issue in the Russian civil law doctrine. In the article, the author, raising the question of the permissibility of the existence of real obligations, systematically analyzes possible dogmatic and political-legal arguments, the answers to which make it possible to find the place of real obligations in the system of Russian civil law. At the beginning of the work, the author turns to the dogmatic grounds for substantiating real obligations. Thus, the author reveals the importance of the structure of the system of property law, the principles of numerus clausus and numerus apertus, the properties of following the law, and of the principle of privity of contract for the existence of the real obligations in the given legal order. In the second part of the article, the author tries to provide a political-legal justification for real obligations. The author compares the legal possibilities that are provided, on the one hand, by the use of real obligations in civil law transactions, and, on the other hand, by the use of limited real rights (for example, servitudes), legal restrictions on property rights and social norms (neighborly norms). In the final part of the article, the author summarizes the conclusions made in the article, coming mainly to the general conclusion that Russian private law does not contain serious dogmatic and political-legal preclusions to the existence of real obligations in the domestic legal order.