Civil Code, Article 2264 — Status of Children Born Before 1950

What this article means

A transitional rule: the status and rights of natural children by legal fiction under Article 89, and of the illegitimate children mentioned in Article 287, are also acquired by children born before this Code took effect.

This provision addresses what is sometimes called the retroactivity problem built into any code that displaces prior law: without a rule of this kind, a child born under the former Civil Code of 1889 could have been left in doubt as to whether the status recognized under Articles 89 and 287 of the new Code would apply to them at all. By expressly extending those provisions to children born before the new Code took effect, Article 2264 avoids drawing an arbitrary line based solely on birth date, so that a child's legal status turns on the substantive rules in force at the time the question is decided rather than on when the child happened to be born.

Questions about this provision

• My child was born before the new Civil Code but I want to acknowledge him as a natural child now — does the new code's recognition apply to him even though he was born before it?

How this article reads today. This is a transitional provision about the 1950 changeover. Both categories it names were abolished by the Family Code, which recognises a single class of illegitimate children (Articles 163 and 165) whose legitime is fixed by Article 176.

Related provisions

• Article 2260 — Recognition of a Natural Child.

Cases interpreting this article

• Authorities on this article will be added here as each is verified against primary sources.