On the Issue of Applying the Civil Law to the Property Relations of Spouses by Analogy

Abstract

The relationship between the norms of civil and family law in determining the legal status of the property of spouses within the framework of contractual relations is considered. It is noted that due to the novelty of the institution of contractual property relations for Russia, the peculiarities of the Russian citizens’ mentality, expressed in the predominance of the emotional component of marital relations over the rationality of regulating property relations between spouses, the question of the need to establish norms and eliminate gaps, conflicts when choosing a contractual regime of spouses’ relations in Russian law is important. It is argued that the ambiguity in determining the independence of the subject of family law regulation gives rise to contradictions in the implementation of the norms governing contractual relations of family and civil legislation since property disputes between spouses are regulated by family law, which initially follows from the normative prescriptions of Articles 2 and 35 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation, whereas the relations of former spouses go beyond family relations and the norms of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation apply to them. It is concluded that the autonomous regime of regulation of property relations of spouses is more preferable and allows to avoid the participation of the law enforcer in the process of legal regulation, which, in turn, eliminates the need to fi ll in the gaps by analogy of the law. The novelty of the work lies in highlighting additional meanings in the interpretation of the studied norms of the Family Code of the Russian Federation and the formation of the author's point of view on the groups of property relations arising from the regulation of relations that give the right to change the property regime. The study is based on modern doctrinal approaches, taking into account the analysis of scientific hypotheses, law enforcement practice and reviews of opposing legal positions of the courts. A systematic analysis of the structure of the contractual regime in Russian Family law is carried out, other legal structures regulating the property relations of spouses are determined in order to identify gaps in the normative regulation of marriage and other contracts, and ways to solve them are developed.