The Consent – Essential Requirement for the Validity of the Civil Legal Act
Keywords:
civil legal act, consent, legal will, discernment, vice of consentAbstract
The civil legal act is the manifestation of will or, as the case may be, the agreement of will made with the intention to produce legal effects, i.e. to give birth to, modify or extinguish a concrete civil legal relationship. Consent represents the externalization of the decision to conclude a civil legal act. Consent is a substantive, essential, valid and general condition of the civil legal act. The term consent can have two meanings: unilateral manifestation of the will of the author of the unilateral legal act or, as the case may be, of one of the parties to the bilateral or plurilateral legal act, respectively agreement of will of the contracting parties in contractual matters. As a general rule, the parties are free to choose the form of externalization of their will, except for the exceptions expressly provided by law, as is the case with legal acts for which the law requires that the manifestation of will take a special form. The consent of the parties must be taken seriously, freely and knowingly. Thus, in order for it to be valid, the consent must cumulatively meet the following requirements: (1) to be given knowingly, that is, by a person with discernment; (2) to be serious, i.e., expressed with the intention of producing legal effects; and (3) to be free, i.e., not to be altered by any vice of consent.