The Georgian Model of Compensation of Non-property Damage for Violating Personal Rights in Line with European Standards

Abstract

Personal origin is reflected in civil law in personal rights, which are closely linked to and the inner self of a human. Accordingly, private legal protection of personal is a guarantee of Individuality. Though guaranties of defense of have been reflected in Georgian civil law accounting for the European experience, but with some specificities. The purpose of the research is to understand the European standard in order to clarify the relation between Georgian and European approaches. IT should be mentioned right from beginning that besides term of “personal right”, The Civil Code of Georgia (hereinafter - CCG) envisages a term of “personal non-property rights”. But it is appropriate to also use a term of personality rights recognized in Europe for a comprehensive protection individuals. Objects of some personal can be separated from the person (name, image, personal data and etc.), while some of them cannot (honor, dignity...). There are protected by Article 18, 181 , 992 of CCG. Also, the personal non-property were nominated in general part of CCG, meanwhile Article 992-993 of CCG strengthened the extended protection of in tort law, accounting for the European experience, which created a solid mechanism for protection of Personality. In addition, the Georgian legislation moved much closer to the European standards on one hand with the adoption of “Personal Data Protection Act” and implementation of international demans and on the other hand by spreading private law protection by CCG Article 18¹ on additional personal data. Compensation of non-material damage, which in itself is quite a difficult problem because it is linked to many aspects, plays an important role for civil legal protection of personal non-property rights. Research showed that a common characteristic rule of Continental Europe is actually laid out in Article 413, paragraph 1, in which it is stated that the non-property damages shall be compensated only in cases prescribed by the law. Accordingly, the amount of cases of compensation for non-material damages is limited and only substantial non-property damage is compensated. It is important to generalize the problems by using a deep theoretical knowledge and in full compliance with the law. Considering these details would help create a higher standard of protection for Personality.