Legal capacity is a factor that determines the degree of independence of a citizen in society. Do his actions matter? Can he gain rights and responsibilities? The answers to these questions depend on the completeness of the legal capacity of an individual citizen.
All this is regulated by separate articles of the first part of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, so the first thing we will turn to it.
Degrees of legal capacity of a person and citizen
The 21st article of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation establishes that a person acquires the fullness of civil legal capacity at the time of coming of age. In Russia, it is 18 years old.
It is at this age that a person gains the right to make transactions, as well as bear responsibility in a civil order.
Exception to the general rule
The law provides for such a thing as emancipation.
If a person has not reached the age of 18, but legally marries or begins to engage in entrepreneurial activity, then from that moment he acquires full legal capacity. In the event of termination of activity or divorce, the status of emancipation does not disappear. If the marriage is declared invalid, then the issue of returning a citizen to the previous status remains at the discretion of the court.
Who is so incapacitated?
This category of citizens includes people who cannot objectively evaluate their actions and bear responsibility for them (not to be confused with insanity). It is worth noting that such a status can only be obtained by making a decision on the recognition of a citizen as legally incompetent.
Without a judicial act, no one can deprive a person of his legal capacity. For this, it is necessary to have grounds from an exhaustive list established by law, and the fact of recognition of the objectivity of the data submitted by the court.
Limitation or deprivation?
It is important to understand the difference between recognizing a citizen as legally incompetent and limiting his legal capacity.
In case of restriction, a trustee is appointed for the citizen, who agrees to a person making transactions. The exception is only small household transactions in the form of buying products and so on. In other cases, the trustee must give consent to the transaction.
Upon recognition of a citizen as legally incompetent, guardianship shall be imposed on him. Due to the fact that an incompetent citizen cannot burden himself with responsibility and participate in transactions, then a guardian does it for him.
He must do this, in consultation with the citizen, and if communication with the guardian is not possible, he must take into account his preferences. How to recognize them? Very simple: with parents, relatives or past guardians.
The grounds for recognizing a citizen as legally incompetent and not only
The Civil Code establishes an exhaustive list of grounds. All of them are indicated in Articles 29 and 30 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.
Recognition of a citizen as legally incompetent is possible for one reason - a person must suffer from a mental illness that does not allow him to realize the significance and nature of his actions.
You will be very surprised, but so far there is not even an approximate list of mental illnesses that can lead to the patient losing his connection with reality in a legal aspect. Practice shows that this can be schizophrenia, senile dementia, and even epilepsy. But we will touch on diseases a little later.
There are many more reasons for limiting legal capacity:
- The presence of a mental illness, as a result of which a person cannot independently realize the nature and significance of his actions. What is the difference with the previous base? The fact that in this case a person just needs the help of a third party to fully understand the surrounding reality. The list of diseases, again, does not exist.
- The presence of alcohol or drug addiction. However, alcoholism or drug addiction alone is not enough. To limit legal capacity, it is necessary that two criteria are simultaneously connected: mental and material. It is necessary that an alcoholic or drug addict put his family in a difficult financial situation. For this, it is not necessary to go into long binges. If a person cannot deny himself a bottle of expensive cognac every Friday, then this is enough for family members to sound the alarm and the story ends very sadly.
- Gambling and an unnatural craving for gambling, putting the family in a difficult financial situation. The requirements in this case for recognition by a court of a citizen as legally incompetent are absolutely the same as in the case of alcoholism.
- A healthy citizen without bad habits can be recognized as legally incompetent, provided that he is between the ages of 14 and 18 and spends his income from scholarships, work, and so on, but does so unreasonably.
This list of grounds is exhaustive, but insufficient. For many years, legal scholars have been raising the issue of including substance abuse dependence in the relevant article of the Civil Code. The legislator has been deaf to scientific legal articles and disputes of jurists for many years. Of course, there is a healthy grain in this position - it is hard to imagine how a toxicomaniac can put his family in a distress, but there is a precedent, but there is no norm. The legal gap in recognizing a citizen as legally incompetent is an example of the slowness of the current legislative process.
Procedure and application
The only body authorized to declare a citizen incompetent is a court of general jurisdiction. First you need to make a statement.
An application for recognition of a citizen as legally incompetent may be submitted by:
- spouse of a citizen;
- his children and other family members;
- guardianship authorities represented in the municipality;
- neuropsychiatric medical facilities;
- organizations specializing in the maintenance of elderly people and other special categories of citizens.
A sample application for declaring a citizen legally incompetent is described in the corresponding article of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation (Article 282).
The main requirement of the legislator is a detailed statement of the circumstances to which the applicant refers. If a citizen suffers from alcoholism, it is necessary to collect evidence, income information, copies of receipts for the purchase of alcohol. In general, it is necessary that the court have no doubt that a bad habit brings serious financial harm to the whole family.
What to write in a lawsuit?
The statement should indicate:
- full name of the court at the place of registration of the citizen;
- surname, name, patronymic of the applicant, his address and contact details;
- data of the representative of the applicant;
- essence of the statement: in a simple form in clear words to state facts that give reason to believe that it is necessary to recognize a citizen as incapable;
- copies of the attached documents (receipt of payment of state duty, documents confirming kinship, a copy of the statement of claim, copies of checks and so on);
- date, signature. It is very important. The absence of a signature makes the statement anonymous and the dates invalid. The court will not consider such a document.
It is worth noting that the law does not establish any other requirements for the statement of claim. It is important to remember that the simplicity of presentation should not be the basis for creating an illiterate text. The statement should be written without errors and in a formal business style.
If the applicant refers to a mental illness, the procedure for recognizing a citizen as legally incompetent will be slightly complicated. During the meeting, the judge will need the help of a specialist to make the right decision.
Forensic Psychiatric Examination
The judge is a professional lawyer who has nothing to do with medical practice. It cannot give an objective assessment of a person’s mental illness. In addition, as we found out, in judicial practice there is not even an approximate list of diseases, the result of which is the citizen's disability.
That is why the court involves an expert psychiatrist to participate in the relevant procedure. He is asked one question: can a citizen fully realize the significance, nature and consequences of his actions?
As a rule, a court decision depends on how the involved expert answers this question in his opinion.
As a result of the court hearings, a decision is made to declare a citizen legally incompetent or to refuse to satisfy the applicant's requirements.
Is it possible to return legal capacity?
The law allows the restoration of a citizen in their rights. The Civil Code established the following: if the circumstances that affected the recognition of a citizen as legally incompetent were completely eliminated, then legal capacity can be restored in full. This decision is made by the court, and the application procedure is exactly the same as when declared legally incompetent, only the citizen now acts as the applicant, and the fact of removing obstacles will have to be proved during the court session.
The legal institution described in our article is a serious tool for protecting the interests of citizens. This is not a punishment, but a way of protecting the interests of the citizen and his family members. The correct application of this norm and the vigilance of relatives more than once saved them from serious financial losses and protected them from the actions of scammers speculating on the trust of people who did not give an account of their actions.