The question of whether criminal liability can be engaged only in the case of the violation of a subjective right or whether it operates also when a simple legitimate interest is violated, without being enshrined as a subjective right, has always preoccupied the doctrine of civil law. The discussions were amplified on the background of the evolution of the law of the criminal civil liability, from a law oriented towards the sanctioning of the guilty perpetrator, to an indemnity law, increasingly inclined towards the interests of the victim who suffers from the unjust harming of his subjective rights, but also of the legitimate interests, those which, without being consecrated, cannot be tolerated by the legal order.
The debate has become increasingly animated, in the context of the proliferation of claims that aspire to compensation, under the pressure of unprecedented diversification of human rights and fundamental freedoms, making traditional good morals increasingly relaxed. This explains the tendency of many modern codifications to include them in the broader concept of public order, as a component thereof. Even the French, known for their refusal, sometimes expressed manifestly, to adopt modern solutions, have agreed to reform their Civil Code, through the Ordinance on the reform of the contract law of 10 February 2016, by relating contractual freedom only to public order.
