Issue 4 (22) 2013

GolubtsovaYA_THE CONCEPT OF GUILT IN THE ROMAN CIVIL LAW AND ITS PERCEPTION IN THE RUSSIAN CIVIL LEGISLATION

THE CONCEPT OF GUILT IN THE ROMAN CIVIL LAW AND ITS PERCEPTION IN THE RUSSIAN CIVIL LEGISLATION

Y.A. Golubtsova

Perm State National Research University
15, Bukirev st., Perm, 614990
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract: The article is devoted to the historical and legal analysis of the Ancient Rome guilt understanding formation in the private law. The guilt originates from delicts, the liability for which incurred in preclassical period without regard to the subjective grounds. The first guilt to appear in the Roman sources is the intentional guilt (dolus), and then the negligence (culpa) was separated as a certain level of improvidence, non-diligence, lack of experience of the debtor. The reasons are explained for dividing the negligence into gross and light (insignificant, simple). The Roman types of negligence are the basement for the liability in the modern civil law – in case the contract party had a light negligence, its liability incurs in case of the compensatory nature of the relations, in case it has a financial interest; in case the party acts in the interests of the other party free of charge, the light negligence does not bring it to the liability (creditor, keeper etc.).

In the characteristics of the Roman law, term “culpa” is used for defining both the guilt types (criminal intent and negligence), although the Romans themselves treated the guilt (“culpa”) as negligence.

The attention is given to the fact that the Romans saw a psychological criterion of liability in the guilt, finding both the intellectual and the volitional features of guilt, they evaluated the guilt through the notion of perception, understanding and foreseeing (intellectual feature of the guilt), and also the will, indifference, insufficient motivation (volitional feature of the guilt) of the person. These are the features that make the Roman interpretation of the guilt different from the Russian legislator approach, where the civil guilt is defined as not-taking measures for the proper fulfillment of the obligations.

Keywords: guilt; criminal intent; negligence; Roman private law; Aquilia lex; gross guilt; casus; force majeure; civil liability; delicts

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