Fiqh and Usul

Fiqh and Usul

The Impact of Unconsciousness and Coma on the Legal Relations of a Person in a Comatose State

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Mohammad Mahdi Alsharif 1
Maryam Bolandi Barzaki 2
1 Associate Professor, Department of Law, Faculty of Administrative Sciences and Economics, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran
2 Assistant Professor, Department of Law, Faculty of Law and Humanities, University of Kashan, Kashan, Iran
10.22067/jfiqh.2024.81992.1574
Abstract
Despite the fact that unconsciousness and coma (ighmāʾ) give rise to a wide range of legal complications for the affected individual, the Civil Code addresses only a single aspect of this issue, leaving many related questions unresolved. As a result, most legal scholars have sought to address matters relating to coma through analogy with the doctrine of legal interdiction (ḥajr). The present article aims to clearly distinguish coma from legal interdiction and to clarify the legal status of the acts performed by a comatose person. Based on the findings of this study, which has employed a descriptive–analytical method, although the law speaks of the invalidity of the transactions of the insane, the unconscious, and the intoxicated in the same section, the more accurate position is that the invalidity of a comatose person’s transaction is similar to that of an intoxicated person. This is because in both cases, despite the existence of legal capacity (ahliyyat), the transaction is void due to the absence of intent to form the contract (qaṣd-i ʾinshāʾ) at the time of contract formation, rather than the condition of the insane person, whose lack of intent stems from legal interdiction. On this basis, appointing a legal guardian (qayyim) for a comatose person is unjustified, even when the period of unconsciousness is prolonged. Instead, as in the case of an incapacitated person, one may only resort to the institution of appointing a trustee (amīn) (or custodian). Similarly, the termination of agency (vikālat) and other permission-based contracts (ʿuqūd-i iznī) following a prolonged coma does not originate from the interdiction of the comatose person, but rather from the constitutive role of permission (izn) in such contracts.
Keywords
coma (ighmāʾ)
comatose person (mughmā ʿalayh)
permission-based contracts (ʿuqūd-i iznī)
legal interdiction (ḥajr)
intent to form the contract (qaṣd-i ʾinshāʾ)
Subjects
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