The legal status of a child in civil legal relationships relating to child protection

Abstract

The article considers current issues of legal regulation of protective civil relations regarding the protection of subjective civil rights and interests of the parties in regulatory obligations with the participation of a child. In the context of analyzing the ratio of the volume and forms of implementation of legal capacity and (in the case of a juveniles) tortious capacity of a child, as well as the features of the application of some remedies, the key elements of the legal status of a child in protective civil legal relations related to the violation of an obligation are identified. The study emphasizes the differences in the procedure for applying the property and organizational sanctions for the violation of a regu­latory obligation with the participation of a child. It is noted that despite the legal capacity of minor children to perform minor household transactions, such a child is generally deprived of the opportunity to independently protect their rights and interests in the relevant obligation – with the potential exception of refusing the contract as a self-defense remedy that is relevant to their partial legal capacity. At the same time, a contract concluded by a minor cannot be qualified as a minor household contract if its terms include a provision on the use of such ways of ensuring the performance of the obligation as a penalty or a deposit. Some gaps or controversial provisions of the current Civil Code of Ukraine

norms and the provisions of the draft Civil Code of Ukraine dated 09.04.2026 No. 15150 regarding the legal regime of civil liability of juveniles and subsidiary liability of their legal representatives in the sphere of application law of obligationsʼ norms have been identified. The opinion is expressed that legal representativesʼ of juvenile subsidiary liability naturally reflects their duties for his upbringing and taking into account the natural lack of the own juvenileʼs property sufficient to satisfy the probable claims of creditors. It is proposed to extend such liability to protective relations regarding the recovery from a juvenile penalty, annual interest and inflationary losses for violation of a monetary obligation, and the return of a double amount of the deposit. The authors of the article deny the expediency of imposing on a juvenile the obligation to compensate for moral damage caused by the violation of an obligation, as well as the possibility of applying to juveniles (except for emancipated as entrepreneurs) civil liability for violation of an obligation without including fault in its conditions. According to the general conclusion of the article, the legal status of a child as a creditor or debtor in protective civil legal relations related to the violation of an obligation is determined by the scope and forms of exercising his legal capacity and tortious capacity (if the latter exists) and provides for the appropriateness of taking into account the level of mental, physical and social maturity of the child, the duties of legal representatives to bring up the child and protect his rights and interests, the potential ability of a child who does not have civil procedural capacity to use self-defense remedy such as refusing a contract or obligation.