Whether the right to compensation for moral damage is transferable

Abstract

The doctrine in favor of transferring the Law to reparation of non economic loss has faced controversy. There are three positions in this controversy. One of them suggests that the right to reparation of non pecuniary loss would become extinct with the death of the victim. Another position establishes that the murdered victim‟s relatives are entitled to iure hereditario in order to request repair, because that right is a credit that goes in the victim‟s state and then it is transferred to his heirs. Finally, for a third position, people can demand repair of these damages via iure proprio, because they have had close emotional ties with the murdered victim and the pain and suffering due to their death deserves compensation. However, all these authors agree to support the transmission of the Law to compensate for personal injury when the victim had initiated the demand and dies before compensation. In this context, we cannot avoid the issue of the transfer of the right to reparation of this kind of damage due to the actions of the living. According to our judgment, it is very difficult to admit this last kind of alienation because it distorts the role fulfilled by the reparation of moral damage.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5377/derecho.v0i17.1578