LEGAL RESPONSABILITY: NOTION, CORRELATIONS, EXPRESSION

FRAMEWORK AND EFFECTS

Abstract
Keywords:

1. Preliminaries
From a legal point of view, the terms of liability and responsability are equivalent,
they define each other.
Thus, the Explanatory Dictionary of Romanian Language defines the liability as being:
[the fact of having a responsability, the obligation of being responsable for the
performance of an action, task etc.; responsability.]1 and the responsability as being: [the
obligation of performing an action, of being responsable or accounting for something;
liability.]2.
In French, namely Larousse Dictionary3, the term [responsability] in Romanian has no
equivalent. The only known term is that of liability, namely la responsabilit which
designates the obligation of repairing the damages caused by oneself to someone else, by a
person depending on one, or by an animal or thing being under one`s control; the
obligation to execute the penaly provided for the infringement committed ...
As opposed to the ancient dictionaries of philosophy4 which do not define these terms,
the relatively new dictionaries of philosophy5 and those concerning the social and political
sphere6, allow some space to the term of responsability, stating, inter alia, that
responsability differs from liability by reason of the fact that [liability concerns the man
behaviour within the limits of a system of rules dictated by the society], and
[responsability refers to a voluntary self-commitment, obligation sprung from the system
of rules, becoming a duty that the individual (or the collectivity imposes by selfcontraint]7.
On the contrary, legal dictionaries pay attention to the term of liability, ignoring the
term of responsability.

See Dicionarul Explicativ al Limbii Romne [Explanatory Dictionary of Romanian Language], Publishing
House of Academia, Bucharest, 1975, p. 778.
2
Idem, p. 801.
3
See Nouveau Petit Larousse, Larousse Publishing House, Paris, 1971, p. 802.
4
See, for instance, Mic dicionar filozofic [Small dictionary of philosophy], Publishing House of State for
Political Literature, Bucharest, 1955.
5
See Dicionar de filozofie [Dictionary of philosophy], Political Publishing House, Bucharest, 1978, p. 598-599.
6
See, for instance, Dicionar politic [Political Dictionary], Political Publishing House, Bucharest, 1975, p.
;
Mic dicionar social-politic pentru tineret [Small social and political dictionary for youth], Political Publishing
House, Bucharest, 1981, p. 377-378.
7
See Dicionar de filozofie [Dictionary of philosophy], p. 589.

Taking into consideration only the above-mentioned aspects, it is necessary to

highlight the tangible and distinct reality of the two phenomena which underlines the fact
that these two terms are not equivalent regarding how they have been analysed, the term
of liability targeted the legal and moral area, leading the phenomenon of [liability] to be
analysed not as a whole, but only in a piecemeal fashion, pointing especially the forms of
liability, in view of the different branches of law, and that of responsability being of
concern for sociology aligned with the validity of the social action theory.
The tangible reality of these two phenomena implies the existence of some premises
which determined their occurence, of some conditions which mediated their development
and determined their complexity.
The emphasis on these premises allows us to place liability and responsability in a
framework which can only be social, because both concern the human being, the human
being`s behaviour.
Without entering into details on the history of how the responsability was built, we
reveal that philosophy and contemporary sociology continued the studies on this issue
which is approached from the social action perspective, in correlation with other essential
parts such as: decision, efficiency, as a consequence of the interdiciplinary concerns, that
are clearly sociological and praxeological, gnoseological and axiological, ethical and
legal, particularly materialised in the organisation and management theory.8
The phenomenon of social responsability has come a way parallel to that of valuing
the human natural endowment.9
Thus, within the primary forms of human social community such as family, gens,
brotherhood and tribe, the feeling of solidarity, duty, liability and responsability of the
individual is expressed for his activity in the community, in case of specific people-topeople exchanges.
Then gradually the nation is established as community form, fact which makes the
individual to become at the same time a member of this social entity and to acquire the
feeling and the consciousness of belonging to this community form. In this context, the
feeling of responsability varies by reference to these community forms.
Over time, the gens, the brotherhood and the tribe disappear, remaining only the
family and the nation.
As a consequence, we may conclude that the oldest forms of social responsability are
the family responsability based on social, psychological and even biological factors,
andthe responsability towards the nation as being genuinely social.
In line with the establishment of nations, the polity appeared, leading to the civic
responsability towards the state. At that stage, the individual acquires the status of citizen
8

See Lidia Barac, Rspunderea i sanciunea juridic [Liability and legal remedies], Lumina Lex Publishing
House, Bucharest, 1997, p. 9.
9
Idem, p. 10.

with specific rights and duties which gives him the possibility to express a responsable
attitude for his country`s future as nation and state.
For its part, the nation establishment also led to the appearance and development of the
national responsability.
2. Areas and definition of social and legal responsability and of social liability
Responsability, as a dimension of the individual, is a concept of value order10 which
has to be placed in the center of the individual existence, being linked to his spiritual life,
and is part of the area feelings and attitudes and it is expressed by what we called human
behaviour. This is why, in order to discover his premises, his social areas are not
sufficient, leading to the analysis and the thoroughness of the human spiritual life, whose
basis is represented by the [experience] as a result of the organisation complexity from a
psychological point of view.
Scientifically, the phenomenon of experience, at least so far, can not be explained. It
could be an opening to the zones of laws establishment because, as M. Drgnescu11, the
concerns of the science until now were to develop laws, not to analyse one of their
establishment zones.
Anyway, it is obvious that the individual or collective perceptions which generate
some representations which, in turn, are tranformed into values, form part of the sphere of
experience.

10

Valoarea este totul n sfera cunoaterii, aciunii i creaiei umane, chiar n sfera fiin rii omului ntr-o istorie
concret [Value is everything within the sphere of knowledge, action and human creation, even within the
sphere of human existence in a specific history]. See Alexandru Boboc, Confruntri de idei n filozofia
contemporan [Comparisons of ideas in contemporary philosophy], Political Publishing House, Bucharest, 1983,
p. 278.
11
M. Drgnescu, Inelul lumii materiale [The ring of the material world], Scientific Publishing House,
Bucharest, 1989, p.110.