The exercise and protection of family rights and obligations

How difficult it is to build relationships in the family, it is just as difficult to try to regulate them in the legal field. Here is a very thin line between the personal, where you need to be able to negotiate with relatives among themselves, and external, when the intervention of the competent authorities is necessary.

Two main components in family relationships

It is impossible to understand how relatives interact with each other, if you do not consider the two components of their legal relationship - the exercise and protection of family rights and the fulfillment of family responsibilities.

These two areas correspond to one another, because if one of the members of the cell of society has rights, then, accordingly, there must be responsibilities for others in relation to him. And vice versa, the subject of family legal relations also bears obligations and must respect the rights in relation to other relatives.

How and what are these issues regulated by

In the broadest sense, the protection of family human rights is stated in the second article of the Constitution of Russia - "Rights ... are the highest value, and their ... protection is the duty of the state." And since the area of ​​these legal relations lies in the plane of the interests of the family and relatives (including the former), the main profile norms are legally enshrined in the domestic Family Code. When resolving certain issues, it is also necessary to refer to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. But still, protection of family rights is mainly considered as an institution of the family law of the Russian Federation. Therefore, you should pay attention to the legislation in this area.

Who has family rights and obligations: subjects of these legal relations

In order to make it possible to freely exercise and protect family rights, it is necessary for the subjects to have them, first of all. And who, in fact, are these persons who have obligations and have rights in the family:

• Obviously, such entities are spouses (in the case defined by law, even former).
• The second group of subjects is parents and their children (including the rights and obligations arising from the establishment of such relations - the establishment of paternity, for example).
• Other relatives (duties of grandchildren in relation to elderly grandparents, etc.);
• A special group is guardians and wards, foster parents and children.

When exercising and protecting family rights and obligations, family members or relatives may include courts, registry offices, guardianship authorities, local authorities, law enforcement agencies, and medical institutions in the process.

What may be family rights that need to be protected

First of all, we must take into account that family rights belong to the group of so-called. "Subjective." Those. fathers / mothers and their children, husbands and wives and other categories of subjects of family legal relations exercise their own right and bear their own responsibilities directly, personally (here you cannot involve the institution of contractual representation in the process, the exception is if we are not talking about the legal representation of legally incompetent or minors ) It is easy to understand this rule by example: a mother receiving child support from her ex-husband cannot transfer this right to receive child support to some other child.

It is also important to consider that entities are involved in the exercise and protection of family rights, which can be either personal or property. Property subjective rights and obligations are closely related to the circle of specific individuals.So, spouses have mutual rights to the material maintenance of each other. The death of a husband or wife terminates all their obligations to each other.

Use or not exercise your rights

If you follow the "letter of the law", and specifically - the norms of the IC of the Russian Federation, any citizen has the right to dispose of his family rights in such a way as he considers necessary. That is, subjects are guided by their own discretion. This also includes rights to protect personal rights.

In practice, there are two nuances:

1. The decision is made independently, whether, in principle, the subject will dispose of his immediate family rights purely at his discretion, or even prefer not to use them.
2. In certain situations, the procedure for exercising and protecting family rights is somewhat different: the prosecutor or the guardianship authority may become the initiator. But such an order is possible only if there is a danger or threat to society, society or its large group, and not only the interests of an individual family member are affected.

Choosing a way to exercise the rights and obligations of a family member

Each of us has the right to protect our own family rights, and with all available means, which are not prohibited by law. Before talking about immediate protection, it is necessary to understand how actually your rights can be realized in the framework of family legal relations:

• The first way is through active actions (for example, divorce at the initiative of one of the spouses).
• The second method is the implementation in the form of a requirement of a certain behavior from third parties. For example, when the ex-spouse does not allow the children to see the children after the divorce on their own initiative, and not by decision of the competent authorities or the court, then the ex-husband legitimately requires her to still meet with the children. This is the most common case of the exercise and protection of the family law of one of the parents.

Are there limits and limits?

As in any other relations regulated by law, measures to exercise family rights are not unlimited. A number of certain restrictions and frameworks are in any case provided for by the legislator in the interests of society and other family members, or even the whole of society.

Although there are certain nuances in this case:

• if a deliberate violation of the rights and legitimate interests of other persons / relatives has the main purpose of causing harm to them, then she does not enjoy legal protection. This situation can be illustrated by the following example: a daughter-in-law with a mother-in-law had a controversial situation, as a result of which the first restricts the communication of a legitimate grandmother with her grandchildren by establishing a ban;
• if there was no purpose to abuse the right, then the law will protect the subject whose rights have been violated and refuse to exercise and protect family rights to the person who violated the established framework or used the rights in violation of their purpose.

Content of Legislative Limits

There are several main points when the legislator was forced to outline the limits for the subjects in protecting their rights. After all, actions that do not have borders can be dangerous both for the subject itself and harm society or third parties. The content of the limits for the exercise and protection of family rights is reduced to the following 6 standards:

1. The violation of rights and freedoms shall not occur, and the interests of all family members or other persons shall not be affected.
2. The exercise of one’s own rights presumes the choice of protection behavior options, but only taking into account the current rules.
3. The subjective criterion is the personal and inalienable nature of family rights and obligations and their role distribution between subjects.
4. Family rights may be used only in accordance with the purpose of these rights.
5. The nature and limits of the use of means of enforcement and protection of family rights granted to an authorized person are taken into account.
6. The time limits for the exercise and protection of family rights, since the moment of the onset or expiration of the terms of protection is taken into account.

The last paragraph should be considered in more detail in view of its special legal significance.

The particular importance of timelines in the implementation of protection in family law

Scientific and educational literature always focuses on this point. But the timing is not as important in theory as in practice. If we take into account the term for the exercise and protection of family rights briefly, as a kind of legal fact, then this is the established time or the time period with the onset / course / expiration of which the legislator directly relates the need and accessibility of the implementation of existing family rights and the performance of their duties.

There is a conditional division of terms into two categories:

1) the period of existence of the law - subjective family law can be realized only in the prescribed period. The deadlines have expired, which means that the subjective right of a family member ceases. For example, according to the law, after a divorce, women may require payment of alimony during pregnancy and before the birth of a 3-year-old child.

2) the deadlines establishing the beginning of the validity of rights - with the onset or expiration of the law, the judicial authorities and representatives of the law associate the possibilities for exercising family rights. In turn, they are divided into permissive and prohibitive. An example of the first: after the 1st month. from the moment of filing an application with the registry office, it becomes possible to terminate the legal marriage. An example of the second: depriving a mother of her parental rights, the judicial authority does not give the right to adopt her children to anyone within six months.

A separate nuance: the limitation period

When considering the issue of limitation in the exercise and protection of family rights, it is worth turning to the norms of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation: this legal term refers to the period for protecting the right to claim of a person whose rights have been infringed or violated in any way.

In accordance with the IC of Russia, claims arising as a result of a conflict in family relations do not apply to the limitation period. But the Code itself explicitly calls the exception rules:

• a three-year period for claims for the separation of acquired property values ​​of divorced spouses;
• 1 year to take into account the existing requirements of one of the spouses, whose consent to perform actions with real estate and a transaction deemed legal only in the case of notarization, was not presented to the second spouse;
• 1 year for one of the spouses to demand marriage recognition when one of the spouses at the time of marriage concealed from him the fact of having a venous disease or HIV infection.

By agreement of the parties, the limitation periods do not change.

Protection and liability measures

Protective measures and measures of responsibility in seed law in the exercise and protection of family rights are two important, but different concepts:

I. The first concept is the tools, methods and means of family legal influence, which are aimed at preventing / suppressing violations of subjective rights. They are applied in the legislatively established order, regardless of whether the offender’s guilt was detected or not.

II. The second concept is state measures. impact on the offender (which is important!) of the offender, which are established by family law. They are expressed in depriving the offender himself of his subjective right or in additional negative consequences for him of a property nature.

Those. as a result, the criterion of guilt is important - the presence or absence. As well as the criterion of unlawful actions of the subject.

In family law, liability can be either contractual or legal.

Which authorities may consider disputes

Most entities seek judicial protection. Courts have jurisdiction over the protection of violated or disputed family rights (such as the collection of alimony). Claim proceedings are applicable here, where the protection of protected interests is carried out in a special order (establishing the fact of adoption, for example).

Protection of family rights through appeals to state bodies or to any official takes place in an administrative order (appeal to executive authorities, guardianship and trusteeship, registry office, officials of educational, educational, medical institutions, etc.).

When all the domestic means of legal protection were tried and did not bring results, citizens have the right to appeal to the appropriate authorities to protect human rights and freedoms at the international level.

Protection of relative and absolute rights

Since the subject of family legal relations is always opposed by another subject, it can definitely be said that subjective rights are by their legal nature. Which are protected, act as relative. This is easily seen in the example where the parent's right exists only when the opposite subjects to which it is addressed are children.

But in some cases, family rights remain relative, while acquiring the content of absolute rights. So the father or mother has the right to demand the return of their children from any citizens who keep them unreasonably, i.e. there is no judicial decision or law on the right to guardianship of children.

Both of these types of family rights must be protected in strict accordance with the law.