The Conditions of Civil Liability within the New Civil Code

The Romanian new Civil code defines the civil non-contractual liability in a text largely inspired from Quebec’s Civil code. Every person has the duty to obey the rules of conduct that the law or local custom impose and to not breach, through his actions or inactions, the rights and legitimate interests of other persons. The civil contractual liability consists of the debtor’s obligation to repair the damage occurred to his creditor as a result of the non-fulfillment, inappropriate or delayed fulfillment of the obligations set by the contract. In the legislator’s vision, the varieties of civil liability are the contractual liability for one’s own acts and the contractual liability for another one’s acts. The illicit act is represented by the actions or inactions by means of which, a person, ignoring the rules of conduct settled by law or local custom, breaches the rights and legitimate interests of other persons. The damage consists of the harmful results of committing the illicit act. The illicit act and the damage are presented within the space dedicated to the conditions of the liability for one’s own acts. The causal relationship expresses the causal link between the illicit act and the damage, namely that the illicit act generated the harmful result. The new regulation does not bring changes to the manner in which the causal relationship was seen in the prior legislation. The wording “he who causes damage to another through an illicit act” is very clear in what the existence of this condition of civil liability is concerned. Expressly regulated in the framework of the liability for one’s own act, this condition is peculiar to the entire civil liability. Moreover, the illicit character of the act is given by the circumstance that it breached the rule of the objective law and caused damage to the subjective law of a person. The breach of the subjective right and expressis verbis, the violation of the legitimate interests bring about the consequences of civil liability. The forms of civil guilt (intention and fault) are explicitly described, no longer being necessary to resort to the Criminal code’s provisions.