Domestic violence and vitiation of contractual consent : when does domestic violence vitiate consent?

Abstract

This dissertation studies situations where acts of violence are perpetrated by one household member against another, which acts manage to cause physical or moral harm to force them to give their contractual consent. It focuses mainly on answering the question of whether mere pressure alone vitiates consent within a contractual framework. The researcher found out that although mere pressure is not enough to invalidate someone’s consent, a threat that manages to expose the victim to determinate, unjust, and grave danger and manages to leave an impression on the reasonable man, does amount to vitiation of consent. The researcher concluded that domestic violence that goes beyond mere pressure manages to affect the validity of the contracts entered into as a result, as opposed to pressure alone which does not enable a party to nullify a contract on the basis of violence. In the closing subsections where there is a brief comparison of Maltese law with other foreign jurisdictions, one does not find vast differences between civil law and common law countries, but minor ones arising out of the fact that civil law is codified while common law is based on custom. From this dissertation, it resulted that Maltese drafters are very careful on how to draft the law as they manage to protect the victim through various practices while also try to avoid situations where contracts are easily annulled. The said carefulness is taken in order to avoid situations where third parties in good faith could also be affected as a result of the annulment of a contract because consent was vitiated by violence.