The Death of Man in Context of Study of Persons

Abstract

The increased attention of modern researchers to the legacy of the classics of Russian civillaw has led to the discovery of alternative approaches to understanding the fundamentaltenets of civil law. One of these findings is the doctrine of persons, according to which aperson (subject of law) and a man are completely different concepts, there is no identitybetween them, the first is subordinate to the second, as a means of activity is subject tothe doer. With this approach, the person becomes a set of legal opportunities provided tothe man, his legal capacity. Taking the separation of a person and a man, on the one hand,and the identification of a person and legal capacity, on the other hand, the author of thearticle concludes that legal capacity is not in absolute dependence on human life. The author refutes the widespread opinion about the termination of a subject of law (naturalperson) and civil legal capacity at the time of death. It is concluded that Article 17 of theCivil Code of the Russian Federation does not contain an indication of the moment ofcomplete termination of legal capacity, but determines only the reason for its gradualtermination — the death of man. It was proposed to call the long process of termination oflegal capacity with the gradual disappearance of its individual elements called destructionof legal capacity. The conclusion about the preservation of a natural person, that is civillegal capacity, after a death of man is used in a critical study of legislation and allowsthe author to formulate proposals for improving legal regulation and law enforcementpractice in such areas of public life as inheritance, bankruptcy, intellectual property, stateregistration of rights to immovable property.
For citation: Pyatkov D.V. (2020) The Death of Man in Context of a Study of Persons. Pravo. Zhurnal Vysshey shkoly ekonomiki, no 3, pp. 112–133 (in Russian) DOI: 10.17323/2072-8166.2020.3.112.133