The Basis for Civil Responsibility or Liability Resulting from the Failure to Fulfill a Commitment

Document Type : Research Article

Author

• Sayyid Ḥasan VaḥdatÄ« ShubayrÄ«

10.22067/fiqh.v0i0.3152

Abstract

Civil responsibility, meaning to undertake to compensate the damage, is divided into two types of conventional and natural responsibility. The difference of these two lies in the existence of a conventional relation between the two sides before infliction of damage. That the above-mentioned difference becomes the origin for a dramatic difference in the basis and outcomes of the two types of responsibility is controversial among the jurists. The well-known view considers the origin of conventional responsibility to be the explicit or implicit intention of the two sides of convention and the origin of natural responsibility to be the ruling ordained by the legislator. This difference makes the domain of responsibility in the conventional responsibility subject to the intention of the two, enabling them to expand or restrict the extent of their commitment to the compensation of damage in case of violating the law. The more recent view denies this difference and considers other differences as peripheral.
The present article highlights the first viewpoint and the author believes that since the origin of conventional responsibility is the intention of the two sides, they can assume the responsibility to be bigger or smaller that what is asserted in rules and that this agreement is not against the imperative rulings of the law-maker or the legislator.
Keywords: civil responsibility, conventional responsibility, violation of contract, fulfillment of commitment.

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