Legal capacity

The legal capacity of a natural person is the aptitude of this person for being titular of her right and obligations. Legal capacity includes on the one hand the capacity of exercise, and another other share the capacity of pleasure.

Classification and base of the capacities

Capacity of pleasure

The capacity of pleasure is the aptitude for being titular of one or more rights. The attribution of the legal Personality raises the question to know if the person is itself able to exert her rights. One must precisely admit for the natural persons, that the acquisition of the legal personality does not lead initially, has to recognize the capacity of pleasure. Thus, the minors are quite prone of right, and this since their birth, but they are said unable because they do not have during the time of their minority, the legal aptitude to exert themselves the rights which they hold.

Capacity of exercise

The capacity of exercise is the aptitude to exert oneself a right which one holds, without needing to be represented nor assisted by a third. This capacity of exercise supposes to have the legal Personality. The reverse is not true. The recognition of the legal personality does not result in admitting the capacity automatically to exert oneself of the rights which one is ready to hold. It may be that a person equipped with the capacity of exercise sees it withdrawing, without she losing for as much the legal personality.

Incompetents

Certain people can be limited in their capacity.

According to the article of the Civil code, “any person can contract if she is not declared unable by it by the law”. The not émancipés minors as well as the major ones protected within the meaning of the article from the Civil code are unable to contract (Article of the Civil code).

Minors

The article of the Civil code fixes the majority is 18 years old and consequently gives the capacity for all the acts of the civil life. The article of the Civil code lays out that the children remain under the authority of the parents until the majority or the emancipation. The emancipation gives to a child of less than 18 years the rights and the duties of an adult. A émancipé minor does not depend any more authority of his parents. The minor will not be able to act as justice, they are also the parents who must represent it.

Example: If a minor is titular of a property right on a building, they will be the parents who will ensure of it management in the interest of the child. The parents hold the administration and the pleasure of the goods of their child.

The major ones protected

The article of the Civil code defines the major one protected as that “which, by its prodigality, its intemperance or its idleness, is exposed to fall into the need or compromises the execution of its family obligations”. When the major one knows a deterioration of its personal faculties which makes it impossible for it to only provide for its interests, the judge organizes his protection in the respect of individual freedoms according to three modes of protection:

the Curatelle (articles with Civil code) makes it possible to assist the major one in the acts of the civil life.
the supervision (articles with Civil code) involves the legal incapacity widest and applies whenever the major one needs to be represented in a continuous way in the acts the civil life
the Sauvegarde of justice (articles with Civil code) is a temporary measurement which makes it possible major to preserve its droits

The struck people of a sorrow with Perpétuité are déchues of their capacity. They are the legal interdicts .

See too

legal Personality

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