There are various causes that can lead to the nullity of a legal act.
Nullity is the character of null (as defined as something that has no value ). Nullity, therefore, can be understood as the vice, declaration or defect that minimizes or directly nullifies the validity of a certain thing.
From the perspective of law , the idea of nullity accounts for a condition of invalidity that may result in a legal action and that causes said act to cease to have legal effects. Therefore, nullity takes the act or rule back to the instance of its presentation.
Declaration of nullity
The declaration of nullity is based on the protection of interests that, by not complying with legal requirements, are violated when the legal process is developed. Given that, until this declaration, the act was effective, nullity can be retroactive (reversing the effects that occurred prior to the declaration) or irretroactive (maintaining the effects generated before the declaration).
Among the causes of nullity of a legal act, the absence of consent, capacity or cause, failure to comply with formal requirements and the existence of an illicit object can be mentioned.
It is possible to distinguish between void acts (whose defects are established a priori by legislation ) and voidable acts (in which the defects are not expressed and are flexible). Nullity, for its part, can be absolute (if the act affects a rule of public order and violates the rights of the entire society ), relative (the interested parties can request nullity), total (nullity affects the entire act) or partial (nullity only affects part of the act).
What should be considered
It should be mentioned, however, that in the field of processing not every act considered irregular is void ; Only those whose irregularity is related to an essential and not accidental form can be considered as such.
For a procedural act to be declared void, certain conditions must be met:
- That there is legal incapacity in some of the parties that have participated in it : This means that one of them is a minor or has irreversible health problems that prevent them from having absolute control over their faculties, said illness may be of a physical nature. , intellectual, sensory or emotional or a fusion of several of them. At this point we must point out that capacity is known as the ability of human beings to make use of their rights and obligations without requiring the intervention or help of third parties. There are two types of capacity, the capacity to enjoy (ability to be holders of rights and obligations) and the capacity to exercise (of a legal nature, it is the capacity to exercise those rights and obligations).
- That defects of consent are proven : That is to say that the acceptance of the signing of the contract was not free. Consent is known as the manifestation of the desire to do something and it must be free, without violence or error. It must be express and tacit.
If any of these requirements are not met, then the contract may be declared void.
Ecclesiastical annulment allows a marriage to be nullified.
Ecclesiastical nullity
In the field of the Catholic Church, the judicial process through which it is demonstrated that there were reasons prior to the contraction of the marriage that would be important enough to annul said union is known as ecclesiastical annulment. Unlike what happens in divorce (the bond of marriage is indissoluble for the Church), when declaring annulment it is considered that said union never existed; It is the only way in which a couple can separate in compliance with the laws of the Church.
To request marriage annulment it is necessary to comply with some of the requirements presented by Canon Law. Some of them are:
- That one of the spouses does not have control of their abilities .
- For canonical immaturity : ignoring the commitment that marriage contains according to the laws of the Church.
- For other reasons that the Church considers valid to proceed with said annulment.
Nullity, finally, in colloquial language is used to name ineptitude or incapacity . For example: "The coach has shown absolute inability to solve locker room problems," "I have never met anyone with such inability to use the computer."