Claim, permission and disposition in the theory of subjective right in private law

Abstract

The key question of this article is whether legal claims and legal privileges (in Hohfeldian sense) are to be regarded as self-sufficient entities of their own, or they should be paired with other elements like legal powers. The basic thesis of the piece is that legal power is an indispensable element of a legal right of each and every type in private law. To demonstrate the viability of this basic thesis, the German concept of the so-called claim right (der Anspruch) in private law has been put under scrutiny. Various theoretical models of a claim right, as developed in the German private law doctrine, have been analysed (theories of B Windscheid, E. R. Bierling and A. Thon). All of them conceived claim right as inextricably connected with the legal power to dispose. Basically, the same is true of privileges (liberties in the Hohfeldian scheme of jural relationships), which, as the author thinks, cannot operate without legal powers.

References

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