THEME II

The notary and the natural person

Whatever the degree of revolution and evolution of the means and social actors, whatever the extent of the material innovations generating real social transformations including the exponential evolution of the virtuality of relations and the proliferation of legal fictions, the human being, the physical person, remains at the heart of all concerns. Robotics, Blockchain, excessive dematerialization could not overcome the physical person who is neither relegated to the background nor dumped. On the contrary, it still remains the main actor of social and economic life.

Although the evolution of social positions, social behaviors, social relations and mores are the object of exceptional researches and work, the natural person keeps his authenticity and unseizability. As if to confirm the dogma, the physical person appears as an eternal and permanent discovery.

The life of natural persons is understood as a behavioral universe rich in actions, sensations and attentions. Indeed, social relations are becoming more complex, the mobility of people and the search for gain through investment are intensifying, national, community and international rules are trying to adapt. These various movements, concrete or abstract, intended or undergone by the physical person and which have a considerable influence on life in society, cannot escape the Notary. The latter cannot let the contours of the physical person escape him.

The Notary must therefore seize the physical person, in all his contours and in all stages of his life. To do this, the notarial profession must constantly think on ways to adapt to the needs of the natural persons and satisfy them. It is in this context that the International Congress of Notaries has chosen to dedicate Theme II of its 29th edition to the following theme: "The Notary and the natural person".

The study of this theme will highlight the importance of the intervention of the Notary, as a guarantor of legal certainty and trusted third party, in all the stages of the life of the physical person. It is understood that the peaceful practice of the law, its accessibility, its stability and its predictability are a real need of society and correspond very largely to the daily reality desired and lived by each physical person.