Interpretation of civil law norms: description, methods and types

Civil law is a set of legal dogmas that consolidates and unites all the provisions regulating social and social relations.

Civil-law norms are generally established and legislatively fixed norms of behavior that apply to all entering into civil legal relations.

The norms regulating civil-law relations are subject to unconditional protection of the state, because exactly it is considered a guarantor of legitimacy and security in the sphere of civil rights.

Types of civil law norms and their interpretation

The norms in the civil-law field are divided into species that reveal the interdependence of the level of obliga- tion of the parties participating in legal relations and the rules of their behavior:

1. Dispositive view. Includes rules that can be changed by mutual decision of the participants in the process. This kind reflects the ideal balance of all interests involved in legal relations. The dispositive rules contain repeatedly tested solutions. Most of the norms in the civil law field apply to this species.
2. Imperative view. Rules relating to it, no one has the right to change at its discretion.

For the unmistakable use of one or another legislative unit, it must be correctly interpreted, that is, to understand its purpose, its essence and meaning. Interpretations, depending on the subject, are divided into several types:

• Authentic interpretation of civil law standards. It assumes that the explanation should come from the body that adopted the legislative act.
• Legal interpretation. The essence of the legislative unit is interpreted by the body that has the legal right to do so.
• Judicial interpretation of civil law standards. Civil law explains that this type of interpretation occurs when a court decision is made and is considered important only for parties to the lawsuit.
• Scientific or doctrinal. The interpretation of the norm takes place through comments and explanations to legislative acts, codes and other specialized literature or at specialized symposiums and conferences. The doctoral (scientific) kind of interpretation has no obligatory power, but it affects the comprehension of the essence of the normative act.

Considering the types of civil law norms and their interpretation in their dependence on the volume, we can distinguish the following types:

• Interpretation is literal (used if the essence of the legislative norm is considered appropriate text);
• Restrictive (works when the essence of civil law is somewhat narrower than the essence of the literal text);
• The interpretation is broad (back to restrictive, but does not work if you need to take into account a possible exception to the generally accepted rule).

Specialized techniques

Theoreticians of law in the section dealing with the interpretation of legal norms have defined special, special methods, methods and ways of knowing the essence of any rule of law, which are called methods of interpreting its normative unit.

Interpretation or interpretation is an activity in the intellectual field that allows to establish the exact meaning and essence of the legal unit or to point out the specific features of the will expressed by the legislator.

From the foregoing, summing up, it becomes clear that the interpretation of civil law is a complex of certain techniques, which makes it possible to understand the legal norm in the field of civil legislation.

There are several

In the legal literature there are several ways of interpreting legislative acts. They are based on specialized sections of knowledge and are used to study the subject and content of the law with the sole intention of realizing it in practice.

The ways of interpreting civil law norms are divided into five categories: logical, grammatical, special-legal, systematic, historical.

Method of interpretation historical

The concept and types of interpretation of civil law norms are inconceivable without an assessment of historical realities during the creation of legislative acts. Therefore, the method implies a comparative analysis of historical and living conditions during the adoption of legislative norms with its normative and legislative essence. The interpreter, thus, can trace possible connections and clarify the continuity of the civil-law unit with other documents adopted in the previous historical period.

The method is rarely used by interpreters. Usually in those episodes when there is a need to trace the change in the development of the studied norm in the field of civil legal relations.

Method of interpretation is systematic

This method is intended to emphasize features that are inherent in any norm in the field of civil law relations under a particular situation. The way of systematization is based on the structure of scientific legal knowledge and the ability to find links between them and in addition to studying the definition of the place, role and essence of the studied norm in the structure of civil law norms.

He uses a systematic approach to analyze legislative norms, individual chapters or articles, and, in general, a legal act. Particular attention is paid to the study of the content of the document, by comparing it with the earlier adopted and clarifying its role in the structure of legislative norms, as well as clarifying the characteristics of the various ties with other documents.

The application and interpretation of civil law norms in a systematic way is a clear understanding of the place, role and position of a specific legislative norm in the field of civil law, and its structural links with adjacent to civil sectors of law.

They resort to this method for studying normative documents and appraisal concepts, which make it possible to find criteria for revealing the essence of phenomena and concepts.

Method of interpretation is special-legal

Its basis is the specific knowledge of the legal cycle. This method reveals the spirit of the legislative norm, establishes its content, object and meaning. In this method of interpretation, a significant emphasis is placed on knowledge and ability to determine the different types of legal rights and schemes of their work, the possession of legal functions, facts and responsibilities.

Most often, the interpretation of civil law rules in this way allows a thorough explanation of the contents of the legislative document in full, which makes it possible to apply it most accurately. Theorists of law consider a special legal interpretation, together with a grammatical and logical ideal form of reading the law.

Method of interpretation is logical

This method works on the basis of formal logic. That is, the law is examined for reasons of proof, analogy, disjunction, deduction and conjunction. Consequently, the interpreter, acting from the standpoint of formal logic, will use intellectual activity to expose the rule of law. As a result of independent use of rules, conditions, methods of logical thinking due to ambiguous words chosen by the legislator, the meaning of the document may not correspond to the literal meaning of the law.

Interpretation by the method of formal logic is applied when other ways of interpreting civil law norms do not allow the whole, without a trace, to reveal the essence, subject and content of the legislative document. Along with this, considering that the studied acts consist of words or phrases, the researchers of the theory of rights believe that the method on the basis of formal logic is not applicable for evaluation norms in the context of civil-legal relations.

Method of interpretation grammatical

This method is based on phraseology, grammar, vocabulary and other branches of philology. The essence of this method is a scrupulous study of the body of an article or the whole law with the purpose of analyzing the text itself, that is, paragraphs, individual words, sentences and phrases. It is this method that elucidates the features of the genus, case, number of nouns, adjectives; Determines the time, number, type and face of the verbs, the linguistic meaning of prepositions, conjunctions, introductory words, punctuation marks, etc., etc. This is how the letter of the law is analyzed.

In other words, the above interpretation of civil law rules means:

• The study of the essence or significance of terms used by the legislator, in relation to the features of use (special or general);
• Clarification of the meaning of a particular sentence or a completed thought (paragraph or logical group of sentences).

Interpretation on a grammatical basis is used when interpreting words that have several meanings and normative explanations.

Examples of interpretation of civil law norms

Interpretation of the norm of the law with the help of the method of grammatical analysis can be considered using the example of Article 30, paragraph 1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. As follows from this article, a person who, due to the abuse of smoking, narcotic drugs or alcoholic beverages or adherence to gambling, plunges his family into a difficult financial situation, has good reason to obtain a limitation of efficiency (or legal capacity) in court. The legislator used commas and the "or" union to indicate misdemeanors, and this is a direct indication that even one of the listed cases of abuse will suffice to apply the article.