Subject of civil law

Property relations; personal non-property relations associated with property ones; and other personal non-property relations were recognized as the subject of civil rights in the Soviet civil law. In particular, this approach was reflected in article 1 of CC of UkrSSR, 1963.

In this regard, in due time, in Soviet civil law literature much attention was paid to the definition of the concept of property relations and establishing of criteria for assigning them to areas of civil law. Some authors (A.A. Pushkin) named commodity-money nature of property relations, others (Y.S. Chervony) named property independence of subjects and the fact that the last act as “independent owners of goods” as such criterion.

With adoption of the Civil Code of Ukraine in 2003, foundation for such disputes is liquidated as the Article 1 of the Civil Code refers to the subject of civil regulation only those of property relations that are based on legal equality, free will, property independence of their participants. Thus, not the subject but the method and principles of legal regulation become the main criterion for establishing branch belonging of relationships. Legal equality and free expression of participants of relations regulated by it are typical for the civil method.

By its nature, property relations are characterized by the following features:

1) they are economic, i.e. they have money-commodity character;

2) they arise and exist between the participants who possess proprietary independence and legal equality;

3) they provide satisfying of mostly material needs and interests.

The most common criterion of property relations in civil law can be divided into:

1) property relations of belonging of property (relations of statics), such as relations of ownership, possession, use;

2) property relations as to fixing of the process of property transition (relations of dynamics), for example, relations under contractual obligations, commitments as to injury, etc.;

3) property relations on management of a corporation (corporate relations), for example, relations for management of private property by members of corporations (JSC, LLC, etc.);

4) property relations as to creation and use of intellectual property (exclusive relations), for example, relations on use of works of literature, science and art, inventions, utility models and industrial designs, etc.

Non-property relations also take a significant part in the subject of civil regulation. These legal relations as a subject of civil law are quite “young” since they are first officially recognized in that rank only in the CC of Ukraine. Features of non-personal relationships are the following:

1) they are closely related to personality of their participants;

2) they are non-property, that is their content cannot be determined in money or other property equivalent;

3) they arise and exist between legally equal participants;

4) they provide satisfaction of mainly internal (spiritual) needs and interests.