Moral harm and its compensation in legal terms

Often in practice there is such a thing as moral harm. And his compensation, despite all the specifics of such damage, is of a material nature. How did you manage to combine the incompatible and express in the monetary form the mental suffering of the individual? What is meant by moral harm and how is it assessed? This is our article.

What does it mean?

Moral harm and its compensation are a separate institution of civil law. The civil law itself establishes its concept. So, moral harm is usually understood as suffering (both physical and moral) that a person experiences because someone has violated his personal intangible rights. Compensation is understood as compensation for damage. It represents a monetary payment, roughly equal to the force of the tortures caused.

In what cases is there moral damage and compensation?

The very procedure of collecting money for the sufferings experienced is rather strictly regulated in the legislation. A person has the right to recover compensation for moral harm in the presence of a list of certain conditions. These include:

• The real suffering of suffering;
• The wrongful act of his offender;
• Causal relationship between the two points above;
• Fault of the torturer.

It is important to note that all the circumstances described should take place, and not just one or some of them.

How to determine the price of suffering?

Moral harm and its compensation must be expressed in a specific monetary amount. This issue is very delicate and ambiguous. The amount of compensation for moral damage, as directed by law, is determined by the court. At the same time, various indicators must be taken into account. These include the degree of guilt of the offender, the strength of the suffering experienced, the personality of the victim and other important circumstances. There are no general rules for determining the cost of torture. So, the decision is made by the judge in each concrete case in different ways. At the same time, it is impossible to use the principle of equivalence, that is, complete equality, in determining the amount of moral damage. In this case, a correspondence must be established, adequacy. It can be said that the amount of compensation can not and should not be equal to the degree of harm, but should be sufficient.

What is the meaning of compensation for moral damage?

Yet we must recognize that it is impossible to clearly determine the price of mental suffering. Therefore, many jurists are inclined to believe that such concepts as moral harm and its compensation are introduced into the legal sphere in order to reduce the moral suffering of the victim and cause him positive emotions. In this regard, it is believed that such a "smoothing" of suffering is rather conditional precisely because of the peculiarities of the person's mental constitution. After all, no money will not help to forget those sufferings that a person has undergone as a result of a violation of his legitimate rights and interests.