Toothless European Citizenship / Šimon Uradnik

The legal facts in compliance with the law may further be divided, from the A. Gerloch’s point of view, on the basis of the volitionality or unvolitionality, into lawful legal acts and lawful legal events ; 219 moreover, the author subsequently includes lawful legal status 220 in this enumeration. Lawful legal acts represent acts of the volition of a legal subject, which are in compliance with the law, and legal effects of which are an emergence, change, or termination of a legal relationship. Should lawful legal acts be exercised by a natural or legal person, these are called transactional acts; 221 whereas if lawful legal acts are exercised by a public authority, those are known as individual legal acts. Individual legal acts are constitutive decisions, which ergo constitute an emergence, change, or termination of a legal relationship. 222 That would be, for instance, a decision on granting nationality or citizenship. Lawful legal events are legal facts that are independent of the volition of a legal subject, that are in compliance with the law, and whereby a legal relationship emerges, changes, or terminates. A lawful legal event is a precise point in time; wherefore, the most typical representative of this legal fact is birth. By birth and through birth, an individual enters legal relationships of rights and obligations. 223 In contrast, there stands lawful legal status , which is not an isolated point in time; instead, it is a legal fact that durates unvolitionally on a legal subject, in compliance with the law, and, at the point of the intersection with legal title, it causes legal consequences of emergence, change, or termination. A prime example may be a marital status of marriage or, more thematically related, a possession of the Member State’s nationality. 219 Ibid 162−166. 220 Czech legal theory ordinarily works only with the term of unlawful legal status , which describes an unvolitional situation or status that is contrary to the law. However, from the author’s point of view, if there are unlawful legal status — which are unvolitional legal facts contrary to the law — there must also be lawful legal status — which would be unvolitional facts in compliance with the law. The latter is more than relevant for this monograph, as the reader may find hereinbelow. 221 ‘Rechtsgeschäft’ in German; ‘negotium juridicum’ in Latin. To that effect, see Jaap Hage, ‘What is a legal transaction?’ in Zenon Bankowski, Maksymilian Del Mar (eds), Law as Institutional Normative Order (Routledge 2009). Furthermore, transactional acts are commonly and broadly acknowledged in all Germanic law legal systems, where the Czech Republic with her legal order belongs also. 222 See Aleš Gerloch, Teorie práva (4 th edition, Aleš Čeněk 2007) 162−164. On the contrary, a declaratory decision only acknowledges an already existing legal relation; wherefore, a declaratory decision cannot be legal act and legal fact, respectively. To that effect, see ibid. 223 Ibid 165.

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