Genesis of the legal institute of civil liability in Ukraine

In Ukraine, there is an urgent need to revise the approaches to the institution of civil liability. The modern unification of private law and the introduction of European standards have necessitated updating the provisions of the current legislation on civil liability. In addition, modern law enforcement practice requires a well-developed and scientifically sound concept of civil liability that would allow achieving maximum efficiency in restoring and protecting violated civil rights. This should take into account the main functions of civil liability, such as compensatory (aimed at restoring the victim’s damaged interests) and preventive (providing appropriate incentives to take precautions to reduce or avoid expected liability). Liability measures are an integral part of protection, as liability is inherent in definitive ways of protecting civil rights and interests. Liability alone cannot provide such protection, as it is a static legal category. This function is realized through the application of specific liability measures, which are called sanctions in civil law. The legal position that civil liability is the imposition of legal consequences on the offender, which are manifested in the deprivation of certain rights or in the replacement of an existing right with a new one, or in the addition of an additional right to an existing one, is quite common today. The civil law literature emphasizes that the application of liability measures is always based on the principle of guilt. When a person is imposed with an obligation that already existed but was not fulfilled voluntarily, this is not a measure of liability, but a measure of protection. The list of ways to protect civil rights is wider than the liability measures provided for by law, which makes it possible to significantly expand the actual possibility of protecting violated rights and restore violated interests as efficiently as possible, as well as to encourage participants to civil relations to behave in a socially desirable manner. At the same time, the issues of general grounds of liability for damage and conditions of civil liability, as well as the application of certain sanctions, are promising for further research.